Packaging and Industrial Films Association (PIFA) ceo David Tyson has slammed as “too little too late” the European Commission’s decision to impose “anti-dumping” levies on top of existing import duties on plastic bags entering Europe from China and Thailand.
While acknowledging that the EC’s recent investigation into plastic bags from the Far East flooding the European market to the detriment of the continent’s producers was “exhaustive”, Tyson says of the Commission’s latest move: “Anti-dumping measures are employed to ensure imports compete on a level playing field and not to create an advantage to any particular part of the world. As a result of the new anti-dumping taxes there is no doubt some production will now shift to Europe to take up some of the spare capacity created as a result of massive investment in the Far East. However it is also inevitable that, with combined imports from China and Thailand of 146,000 tonnes during 2005, we will continue to see products exported from the Far East with the duty included.”
The EC’s proposal is now expected to pass for ratification to the Council of Ministers but would not then be implemented until late September.
PIFA says while the EU decision will “certainly assist the competitiveness of the European producers”, without long-term guarantees of supply, additional investment in Europe will be limited because the levies will be reviewed after five years. “This is not an easy situation for companies involved in our industry in Europe to cope with, particularly ass there is also fierce competition from other continents in these product areas,” adds Tyson.
The Anti-Dumping duties will supplement the conventional import duties that currently arise from various countries; the proposal for duty levels is between 5.1% and 15.2% for China and 5.7% and 14.3% for Thailand.
Tyson says the EC’s recent “extremely complex investigation” into so-called plastic bag “dumping” by Far Eastern suppliers “split the industry down the middle” in terms of support for or against anti-dumping investigations, “in sharp contrast” to the “very cohesive approach” the sector had taken in defending the plastic bag industry against “misguided attacks requiring the communication of its very strong environmental credentials”.
PIFA believes that, with the sector’s current “very slim margins”, the additional costs of duties will inevitably be passed down the supply chain.
