EU threatens to widen tariffs on Chinese product amid accusation of duty dodging

The European Union threatened to widen a tariff on automotive-industry wire from China, saying Chinese producers may have shipped “slightly modified” versions of the product to dodge the duty.

The EU opened an inquiry into whether Chinese exporters of molybdenum wire altered the diameter to avoid the 64.3% duty. Automotive companies, particularly truck makers, use molybdenum wire for coating parts.

The EU imposed the trade protection in June 2010 for five years to protect Austrian molybdenum-wire maker Plansee SE from below-cost, or “dumped,” imports from China. The levy, which targets Chinese exporters such as Jinduicheng Molybdenum Co, applies to molybdenum wire containing at least 97% of molybdenum, of which the maximum cross-sectional dimension exceeds 1.35 millimetres and isn’t greater than 4 millimetres.

The Chinese molybdenum wire being probed is “presented at import with a maximum cross-sectional dimension that exceeds 4 millimetres,” the European Commission, the EU’s executive arm in Brussels, said yesterday in the Official Journal.

As part of the inquiry, which will last as long as nine months, the commission ordered EU customs officials to register imports of the modified versions of the Chinese molybdenum wire.

– Bloomberg