[Federal Register Volume 67, Number 192 (Thursday, October 3, 2002)]
[Notices]
[Pages 62104-62106]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 02-24786]


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DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE

International Trade Administration

[A-583-839]


Notice of Final Determination of Sales at Less Than Fair Value: 
Certain Cold-Rolled Carbon Steel Flat Products From Taiwan

AGENCY: Import Administration, International Trade Administration, 
Department of Commerce.

EFFECTIVE DATE: October 3, 2002.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Magd Zalok at (202) 482-4162, or 
Martin Claessens at (202) 482-5451, Office of AD/CVD Enforcement V, 
Group II, Import Administration, International Trade Administration, 
U.S. Department of Commerce, 14th Street and Constitution Avenue, NW, 
Washington, DC 20230.

The Applicable Statute and Regulations

    Unless otherwise indicated, all citations to the statute are 
references to the provisions effective January 1, 1995, the effective 
date of the amendments made to the Tariff Act of 1930 (the Act) by the 
Uruguay Round Agreements Act (URAA). In addition, unless otherwise 
indicated, all citations to the Department of Commerce (Department) 
regulations are to the regulations at 19 CFR part 351 (April 2002).

Final Determination

    We determine that certain cold-rolled carbon steel flat products 
(cold-rolled steel) from Taiwan are being, or are likely to be, sold in 
the United States at less than fair value (LFTV), as provided in 
section 735 of the Act. The estimated margins of sales at LTFV are 
shown in the Continuation of Suspension of Liquidation section of this 
notice.

Case History

    On May 9, 2002, the Department published its preliminary 
determination in the above-captioned antidumping duty investigation. 
See Notice of Preliminary Determination of Sales at Less Than Fair 
Value and Postponement of Final Determination: Certain Cold-Rolled 
Carbon Steel Flat Products from Taiwan, 67 FR 31255 (May 9, 2002) 
(Preliminary Determination). Since the preliminary determination, the 
following events have occurred. In May and June 2002, the Department 
verified the responses submitted by the sole participating respondent 
in this investigation, China Steel Corporation (CSC) and Yieh Loong 
Enterprise Co., Ltd (YL) (collectively CSC/YL). On August 29, 2002, we 
received case briefs from the petitioners \1\ and CSC/YL. On September 
4, 2002, we received rebuttal briefs from the petitioners and the 
respondent. A public hearing was not requested.
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    \1\ The petitioners in this investigation are Bethlehem Steel 
Corporation, LTV Steel Company, Inc., Nucor Corporation, Steel 
Dynamics, Inc., United States Steel Corporation, WCI Steel, Inc., 
and Weirton Steel Corporaiton (collectively, the petitioners).
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    With respect to scope, in the preliminary LTFV determinations in 
this and the companion cold-rolled steel investigations, the Department 
preliminarily excluded certain porcelain enameling steel from the scope 
of these investigations. See Scope Appendix to the Notice of 
Preliminary Determination of Sales at Less Than Fair Value: Certain 
Cold-Rolled Carbon Steel Flat Products from Argentina, 67 FR 31181 (May 
9, 2002) (Scope Appendix--Argentina Preliminary LTFV Determination). On 
June 13, 2002, we issued a preliminary decision on the remaining 75 
scope exclusion requests filed in a number of the on-going cold-rolled 
steel investigations (see the June 13, 2002, memorandum regarding 
``Preliminary Scope Rulings in the Antidumping Investigations on 
Certain Cold-Rolled Carbon Steel Flat Products from Argentina, 
Australia, Belgium, Brazil, France, Germany, India, Japan,

[[Page 62105]]

Korea, the Netherlands, New Zealand, the People's Republic of China, 
the Russian Federation, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, Taiwan, Thailand, 
Turkey, and Venezuela, and in the Countervailing Duty Investigations of 
Certain Cold-Rolled Carbon Steel Flat Products from Argentina, Brazil, 
France, and Korea'' (Preliminary Scope Rulings), which is on file in 
the Department's Central Records Unit (CRU), room B-099 of the main 
Department building. We gave parties until June 20, 2002, to comment on 
the preliminary scope rulings, and until June 27, 2002, to submit 
rebuttal comments. We received comments and/or rebuttal comments from 
petitioners and respondents from various countries subject to these 
investigations of cold-rolled steel. In addition, on June 13, 2002, 
North American Metals Company (an interested party in the Japanese 
proceeding) filed a request that the Department issue a ``correction'' 
for an already excluded product. On July 8, 2002, the petitioners 
objected to this request.
    At the request of multiple respondents, the Department held a 
public hearing with respect to the Preliminary Scope Rulings on July 1, 
2002. The Department's final decisions on the scope exclusion requests 
are addressed in the Scope of Investigation section below.

Scope of Investigation

    For purposes of this investigation, the products covered are 
certain cold-rolled (cold-reduced) flat-rolled carbon-quality steel 
products. A full description of the scope of this investigation is 
contained in the Scope Appendix attached to the Notice of Correction to 
Final Determination of Sales at Less Than Fair Value: Certain Cold-
Rolled Carbon Steel Flat Products from Australia, 67 FR 52934 (Aug. 14, 
2002). For a complete discussion of the comments received on the 
Preliminary Scope Rulings, see the Issues and Decision Memorandum for 
the Final Scope Rulings in the Antidumping Duty Investigations on 
Certain Cold-Rolled Carbon Steel Flat Products from Argentina, 
Australia, Belgium, Brazil, France, Germany, India, Japan, Korea, the 
Netherlands, New Zealand, the People's Republic of China, the Russian 
Federation, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, Taiwan, Thailand, Turkey, and 
Venezuela, and in the Countervailing Duty Investigations of Certain 
Cold-Rolled Carbon Steel Flat Products from Argentina, Brazil, France, 
and Korea, dated July 10, 2002, which is on file in CRU.

Period of Investigation

    The period of investigation (POI) is July 1, 2000, through June 30, 
2001. This period corresponds to the four most recent fiscal quarters 
prior to the month of the filing of the petition (i.e., September 
2001).

Verification

    As provided in section 782(i) of the Act, we conducted verification 
of the cost and sales information submitted by the respondent. We used 
standard verification procedures including examination of relevant 
accounting and production records, and original source documents 
provided by the respondent.

Analysis of Comments Received

    All issues raised in the case and rebuttal briefs by parties to 
this antidumping proceeding are listed in the appendix to this notice 
and addressed in the Issues and Decision Memorandum (Decision 
Memorandum) dated September 23, 2002, which is hereby adopted by this 
notice. The Decision Memorandum is on file in the CRU. In addition, a 
complete version of the Decision Memorandum can be accessed directly on 
the World Wide Web at http://ia.ita.doc.gov/frn/. The paper and 
electronic versions of the Decision Memorandum are identical in 
content.

Changes Since the Preliminary Determination

    Based on our findings at verification, and analysis of comments 
received, we have made adjustments in calculating the final dumping 
margin in this proceeding. These adjustments to the dumping margin are 
discussed in the Decision Memorandum for this investigation.

Use of Facts Available

    In the Preliminary Determination, the Department applied total 
adverse facts available to the mandatory respondents, Kao Hsing Chang 
Iron & Steel Corporation (Kao Hsing), and Ton Yi Industrial Corporation 
(Ton Yi) because these two respondents failed to respond to the 
Department's questionnaire and instead chose not to participate in the 
investigation. As a result, the Department assigned Kao Hsing and Ton 
Yi the rate of 16.80 percent, the highest rate derived from the 
petition. See Initiation Notice. The interested parties did not object 
to the use of adverse facts available, or to the Department's choice of 
facts available. For this final determination, we are continuing to 
apply the same margin based on total adverse facts available to Kao 
Hsing and Ton Yi.

Critical Circumstances

    In its preliminary determination of this investigation, the 
Department found that there was no history of dumping and material 
injury for cold-rolled steel imports from Taiwan. The Department also 
determined that the threshold to impute importer knowledge of sales at 
LTFV (i.e., an antidumping margin of 25 percent or more for EP sales) 
was not met due to the fact that: (a) The preliminary margin calculated 
for CSC/YL was 3.15 percent; (b) the margin relied upon for the 
initiation of this investigation, and assigned to the non-responding 
companies (i.e., Kao Hsing and Ton Yi), as adverse facts available, was 
16.80 percent, which was based on an analysis conducted by the 
petitioners with the understanding that cold-rolled steel from Taiwan 
is sold to unaffiliated trading companies for export to the United 
States; and (c) it is the Department's practice to conduct its critical 
circumstances analysis of companies in the ``All Others'' category 
based on the experience of the investigated companies. Therefore, the 
Department assigned the ``All Others'' category the same rate as was 
calculated for CSC/YL.
    Given that Taiwan had no history of dumping, and that the threshold 
to impute importer knowledge of sales at LTFV was not met, the 
Department preliminarily found no critical circumstances for Taiwan in 
this investigation. For further details, see Preliminary Determination.
    Since the preliminary determination, we received no comments from 
the petitioners or the respondent regarding our preliminary finding 
that critical circumstances do not exist for imports of cold-rolled 
steel from Taiwan. Moreover, the margin calculated for CSC/YL for 
purposes of the final determination of this investigation continues to 
be less than 25 percent, the threshold for imputing knowledge of sales 
at LTFV. Therefore, we have not changed our determination and continue 
to find that critical circumstances do not exist for imports of cold-
rolled steel from Taiwan.

Continuation of Suspension of Liquidation

    Pursuant to section 735(c)(1)(B) of the Act, we are instructing the 
U.S. Customs Service (Customs) to continue to suspend liquidation of 
all imports of cold-rolled steel from Taiwan that are entered, or 
withdrawn from warehouse, for consumption on or after May 9, 2002 (the 
date of publication of the preliminary determination in the Federal 
Register). Customs shall

[[Page 62106]]

continue to require a cash deposit or the posting of a bond equal to 
the estimated amount by which the normal value exceeds the U.S. price 
as shown below. The suspension of liquidation instructions will remain 
in effect until further notice.
    We determine that the following weighted-average dumping margins 
exist for Taiwan:

------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                                                Margin
                   Manufacturer/exporter                      (percent)
------------------------------------------------------------------------
China Steel Corp./Yieh Loong...............................         4.02
Kao Hsing Chang Iron & Steel...............................        16.80
Ton Yi Industrial..........................................        16.80
All Others.................................................         4.02
------------------------------------------------------------------------

ITC Notification

    In accordance with section 735(d) of the Act, we have notified the 
ITC of our determination. As our final determination is affirmative, 
the ITC will determine, within 45 days, whether these imports are 
causing material injury, or threat of material injury, to an industry 
in the United States. If the ITC determines that material injury, or 
threat of injury does not exist, the proceeding will be terminated and 
all securities posted will be refunded or cancelled. If the ITC 
determines that such injury does exist, the Department will issue an 
antidumping duty order directing Customs officials to assess 
antidumping duties on all imports of the subject merchandise entered, 
or withdrawn from warehouse, for consumption on or after the effective 
date of the suspension of liquidation.

Notification Regarding Administrative Protective Order (APO)

    This notice also serves as a reminder to parties subject to APO of 
their responsibility concerning the disposition of proprietary 
information disclosed under APO in accordance with 19 CFR 351.305. 
Timely notification of return/destruction of APO materials or 
conversion to judicial protective order is hereby requested. Failure to 
comply with the regulations and the terms of an APO is a sanctionable 
violation.
    This determination is issued and published in accordance with 
sections 735(d) and 777(i)(1) of the Act.

    Dated: September 23, 2002.
Faryar Shirzad,
Assistant Secretary for Import Administration.

Appendix--Issues Covered in Decision Memorandum

I. Issues Specific to Sales
    Comment 1: Leeway Sales
    Comment 2: Model Match Criteria
I. Issues Specific to Costs
    Comment 3: Product-specific Costs
    Comment 4: Scrap and By-Product Offset
    Comment 5: Interest Expense
    Comment 6: G&A Expense

[FR Doc. 02-24786 Filed 10-2-02; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 3510-DS-P