Anti-dumping measure protects cast iron articles industry

The Secretary of State for Business and Trade has today (4 April 2024) accepted the Trade Remedies Authority's final recommendation to maintain anti-dumping duties on imports of cast iron articles from China. 

The anti-dumping measure, which was transitioned from the EU, will be extended for five more years to protect the industry from being injured by low priced imports from China.  

Cast iron articles are the cast-iron covers and gratings commonly seen on road surfaces and pavements to cover access to ground or sub-surface systems.  

The transitioned anti-dumping duties on cast iron articles from China range from 15.5% to 38.1% and are essential for preventing injury to the industry.  

This measure was among those inherited from the EU and has been in place since January 2018. 

Case background 

On 23 November 2022 the Trade Remedies Authority launched a transition review into anti-dumping measure on imports of certain cast iron articles from China. 

The UK chose to maintain some trade remedy measures after exiting the European Union and these are currently being reviewed to assess if they are suitable for the UK's own economic interests. These are referred to as transition reviews. 

In this case, the TRA undertook a likelihood assessment of dumping and injury reoccurring if the measure was removed and concluded that injury to UK industry would recur if the measure were no longer applied. 

Background information 

• Dumping occurs when goods are imported into a country and sold at a price that is below their normal value in their country of export.  

• Transition reviews into former EU measures determine if a transitioned measure should be varied or revoked according to whether:  

  • the continuing application of an anti-dumping or countervailing duty is necessary or sufficient to offset the dumping of imports of subsidised goods into the UK;  
  • and whether there would be injury to the UK producers of those goods if an anti-dumping duty or countervailing duty were no longer to apply to those goods.  
• EU trade remedy measures of interest to UK producers were carried across into UK law when the UK left the EU and the TRA is currently reviewing each one to establish whether it is suitable for UK needs.  
• Period of Investigation – when we are investigating dumping and subsidy cases, we will use a period of investigation of around a year. We will aim for the end point to be as close as possible to the date of initiation. However, we will decide this on a case-by-case basis.  
• Period of injury – the injury period will usually cover the period of investigation and normally the 36 months immediately before this (i.e., 48 months in total). TRA investigators look at evidence of injury over a longer period than the general period of investigation so that they can assess trends and other factors in more detail than if they looked at a single year.  
• The Period of Investigation (POI) for this review is 1 October 2021 to 30 September 2022. To assess injury, we examined the period 1 October 2018 to 30 September 2022 as (the injury period).