China anti-dumping tariffs on NBR from Japan, Korea

Beijing – China’s MOFCOM announced its final ruling on 8 November to impose anti-dumping duties on acrylonitrile-butadiene rubber (NBR) imports from Japan and Korea.

Tariff rates, effective on 9 Nov for a period of five years, are set as follows:

Korea

Kumho Petrochemical – 12%;

LG Chem – 15%

All other Korean companies – 37.3%

Japan

Zeon Corp. – 28.1%

JSR Corp. – 16%

All other Japanese companies – 56.4%

The investigation was initiated in November 2017 upon application by Ningbo Shunze Rubber and CNPC affiliate Lanzhou Petrochemical, two out of five Chinese NBR makers.

The preliminary ruling was made this July, determining material damage to China’s NBR sector caused by such dumping.

According to MOFCOM’s ruling report, in 2016 China imported 5.74 tonnes of NBR from Korea and Japan, up 6.7% from 2015, whereas the country’s total consumption in 2016 dropped 5.6% from 2015 to 20.6 tons.

The products under investigation accounted for 25% of the China market over the first half of 2017, said the report.