Commerce Remand Results Again Apply AFA for EBCP, Despite Responses From Exporters
The Commerce Department continued to apply countervailing duties for China’s Export Buyer’s Credit Program to two Chinese wooden cabinet exporters in remand results submitted to the Court of International Trade Aug. 5, despite a court-ordered effort by the agency to validate non-use of the program without information withheld by the Chinese government.
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The trade court had directed Commerce to "find a practical solution" to verify non-use information for Dalian Meisen and Ancientree in a decision issued in May (see 2205230033), in a case involving the original antidumping duty investigation on wooden cabinets and vanities from China. But while the agency has recently switched gears in other cases to find non-use despite the government of China’s lack of cooperation, here it found the information provided by Dalian Meisen and Ancientree insufficient to reach that conclusion.
Following the court’s remand, Commerce issued questionnaires to Dalian Meisen and Ancientree “requesting additional information regarding their financing activities,” including information on all loans and financing provided to each of the two exporters’ U.S. customers in the form of a “loan template.”
Ancientree responded with the information for most of its U.S. customers, but “was unable to provide a complete response” for all of them, Commerce said. Meisen “elected not to provide any additional information regarding non-traditional forms of financing that several of its U.S. customers received,” arguing that the financing was irrelevant to the EBCP, the agency said. After Commerce issued a second questionnaire requesting the information, Meisen again “elected not to provide all of the information requested by Commerce,” the agency said.
“In accordance with the Court’s instructions, we attempted to find a practical solution to verify the non-use information on the record and reopened the record to issue supplemental questionnaires to the respondents and their U.S. customers,” Commerce said. “We did not receive sufficient information from the respondents to be able to proceed with verification in a meaningful way. Thus, consistent with our practice, we continue to find as AFA … that the record of this remand redetermination does not support a finding of non-use of the EBC program for the respondents.”
The agency was not swayed by comments submitted by Ancientree and Dalian Meisen following circulation of a draft of the remand results. Ancientree said it obtained information from 90% of its U.S. customers, but that some ex-customers with which the exporter no longer has a business relationship failed to cooperate. Because Ancientree cooperated, Commerce should not apply AFA, and should instead find the responses from its cooperative customers representative, Ancientree said, according to Commerce.
Dalian Meisen on the other hand, though declining to provide some information required by Commerce, said that information is not necessary to verify non-use. “Declarations of non-use are plainly sufficient, consistent with Commerce’s practice with respect to other programs,” Dalian Meisen said. “The method employed by Commerce is unreasonably burdensome and seems to be designed to ensure that almost all customers will not be able to meet Commerce’s requirements.”