Taiwan: Taiwan imposes anti-dumping duties on China-made beer and hot-rolled steel

Taiwan has imposed anti-dumping duties on China-made beer and hot-rolled steel for five years after a probe found the domestic industry had suffered “substantial harm,” the Ministry of Finance said on November 27.

An investigation was launched in March following complaints of unfair competition and levies were applied in July for an initial period of four months.

The finance ministry yesterday said that it and the Ministry of Economic Affairs had “finally determined that the companies involved had engaged in dumping, and that such dumping had caused substantial harm to the domestic industry.”

Companies cited by the ministry included the Chinese subsidiaries of Budweiser and Kirin beer.

The levies on Chinese-made beer would range from 19.13 percent to 51.94 percent, while for steel they would be either 16.1 percent or 20.15 percent.

They would be in place for five years, starting from July.

Some beer importers likely knew “that foreign exporters were engaging in dumping likely to cause harm” between April 4 and July 2, and those goods would also be hit with duties, the ministry said.

China was the biggest source of beer imports to Taiwan last year, Bloomberg News reported previously, with shipments topping US$125 million.

Taiwan currently has 13 cases of anti-dumping duties on products, including 10 from China, which is its largest trade partner, official data show.

Tensions between Taiwan and China remain high, as Beijing maintains military, political and diplomatic pressure on the democratic nation.