China hits US, Mexican pecans with preliminary anti-dumping curbs

Beijing has issued a preliminary ruling that the United States and Mexico are dumping pecans into the Chinese market and harming domestic producers, according to the Ministry of Commerce.

“Over the injury investigation period, the volume of dumped imports rose by a cumulative 104.56 per cent and their share of the domestic market increased by 9.69 percentage points,” the ministry said in a statement on Monday.

“The import price of the dumped products fell by a cumulative 9.15 per cent and remained below the selling price of the domestic like product throughout,” it added.

Chinese authorities announced a “provisional anti-dumping measure” in the form of cash deposits of 51.6 per cent on Mexican firms and 54.3 per cent on American producers. Six Mexican firms that cooperated with Beijing’s anti-dumping investigation received lower rates, ranging from 17.8 per cent to 23 per cent.

Even though the US embassy took part in the investigation, no American producer did, and none received lower rates, according to the ministry.

The measures would take effect on Tuesday and relevant parties had 10 days to submit their written comments to Chinese authorities, the ministry said, as it vowed to “fully protect the rights of all interested parties” and “issue a final ruling objectively and impartially on the basis of the findings”.