EU Revives Threat of Duties on Indian Stainless Steel Fasteners.

The European Union revived a threat to impose tariffs on screws and bolts from India, saying EU producers may be victims of subsidies and price undercutting.

The EU opened probes into whether Indian manufacturers of stainless steel fasteners receive trade-distorting government aid and sell the goods in the 27-nation bloc below cost, a practice known as dumping. In July 2010, the EU closed similar inquiries covering imports of the same goods from India and Malaysia without imposing duties.

The new investigations will determine whether EU producers of stainless steel fasteners have suffered “injury” as a result of any unfair Indian competition, the European Commission, the EU’s trade authority in Brussels, said today in the Official Journal.

The two probes stem from March 31 complaints by the European Industrial Fasteners Institute on behalf of producers that account for more than 25 percent of EU output of stainless steel fasteners, according to the commission, which didn’t identify any manufacturers. The same lobby group, which represents companies including Italy’s Fontana Luigi SpA, was behind the cases covering India and Malaysia that were closed last year.

The European producers’ organization was also behind a separate dumping dispute that led the EU in January 2009 to impose five-year tariffs as high as 85 percent on Chinese screws and bolts. That case excluded fasteners made of stainless steel.

Under EU practices, the commission can impose provisional anti-subsidy duties for four months and provisional anti-dumping levies for six months. The EU’s national governments -- acting on a commission proposal -- can turn those measures into “definitive” five-year duties at the same or different rates.

The commission has nine months from the start of an investigation to decide on provisional measures. EU governments have 13 months from the beginning of a probe to impose five-year anti-subsidy -- or “countervailing” -- duties and 15 months to impose definitive anti-dumping measures.

Source : bloomberg.com