[Federal Register Volume 82, Number 41 (Friday, March 3, 2017)]
[Notices]
[Pages 12437-12438]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 2017-04132]


-----------------------------------------------------------------------

DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE

International Trade Administration

[C-570-037]


Certain Biaxial Integral Geogrid Products From the People's 
Republic of China: Countervailing Duty Order

AGENCY: Enforcement and Compliance, International Trade Administration, 
Department of Commerce.
SUMMARY: Based on affirmative final determinations by the Department of 
Commerce (the Department) and the International Trade Commission (ITC), 
the Department is issuing the countervailing duty order on certain 
biaxial integral geogrid products (geogrids) from the People's Republic 
of China (PRC).

DATES: Effective March 3, 2017.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Ryan Mullen at (202) 482-5260, AD/CVD 
Operations, Office V, Enforcement and Compliance, International Trade 
Administration, U.S. Department of Commerce, 1401 Constitution Avenue 
NW., Washington, DC 20230.

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:

Background

    In accordance with section 705(d) of the Tariff Act of 1930, as 
amended (the Act), on January 11, 2017, the Department published its 
affirmative final determination that countervailable subsidies are 
being provided to producers and exporters of geogrids from the PRC.\1\ 
On February 24, 2017, the ITC notified the Department of its 
affirmative determination that an industry in the United States is 
materially injured within the meaning of section 735(b)(1)(A)(ii) of 
the Act, by reason of subsidized imports of subject merchandise from 
the PRC, and its determination that critical circumstances do not exist 
with respect to imports of subject merchandise from the PRC that are 
subject to the Department's affirmative critical circumstances 
finding.\2\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    \1\ See Countervailing Duty Investigation of Certain Biaxial 
Integral Geogrid Products from the People's Republic of China: Final 
Affirmative Determination and Final Determination of Critical 
Circumstances, in Part, 82 FR 3282 (January 11, 2017).
    \2\ See Letter to Ronald Lorentzen, Acting Assistant Secretary 
of Commerce for Enforcement and Compliance, from Rhonda K. 
Schmidtlein, Chairman of the U.S. International Trade Commission, 
regarding geogrids from the PRC, (February 24, 2017) (ITC Letter).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

Scope of the Order

    The scope of this order covers geogrids from the PRC. For a 
complete description of the scope, see Appendix.

Countervailing Duty Order

    On February 24, 2017, in accordance with sections 705(b)(1)(A)(i) 
and 705(d) of the Act, the ITC notified the Department of its final 
determination in this investigation, in which it found that an industry 
in the United States is materially injured by reason of imports of 
geogrids from the PRC, and that critical circumstances do not exist 
with respect to imports of subject merchandise that are subject to the 
Department's affirmative critical circumstances finding.\3\ Therefore, 
in accordance with section 705(c)(2) of the Act, the Department is 
issuing this countervailing duty order. Because the ITC determined that 
imports of geogrids from the PRC are materially injuring a U.S. 
industry, unliquidated entries of such merchandise from the PRC, 
entered or withdrawn from warehouse for consumption, are subject to the 
assessment of countervailing duties.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    \3\ See ITC Letter.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    Therefore, in accordance with section 706(a) of the Act, the 
Department will direct U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) to 
assess, upon further instruction by the Department, countervailing 
duties for all relevant entries of geogrids from the PRC. 
Countervailing duties will be assessed on unliquidated entries of 
geogrids from the PRC entered, or withdrawn from warehouse, for 
consumption on or after June 24, 2016, the date of publication of the 
Preliminary Determination,\4\ but will not include entries occurring 
after the expiration of the provisional measures period and before 
publication of the ITC's final injury determination as further 
described below.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    \4\ See Countervailing Duty Investigation of Certain Biaxial 
Integral Geogrid Products from the People's Republic of China: 
Preliminary Determination and Alignment of Final Determination with 
Final Antidumping Duty Determination, 81 FR 41292 (June 24, 2016).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

Suspension of Liquidation

    In accordance with section 706 of the Act, the Department will 
instruct CBP to reinstitute the suspension of liquidation of geogrids 
from the PRC. We will also instruct CBP to require, pursuant to section 
706(a)(1) of the Act, countervailing duties for each entry of the 
subject merchandise in an amount based on the net countervailable 
subsidy rates for the subject merchandise. These instructions 
suspending liquidation will remain in effect until further notice. The 
all-others rate applies to all producers and exporters of subject 
merchandise.

------------------------------------------------------------------------
                         Company                           Subsidy rate
------------------------------------------------------------------------
BOSTD Geosynthetics Qingdao Ltd. and Beijing Orient                15.61
 Science & Technology Development Co., Ltd..............
Taian Modern Plastic Co., Ltd...........................           56.24
All Others..............................................           35.93
Chengdu Tian Road Engineering Materials Co., Ltd.*......          152.50
Chongqing Jiudi Reinforced Soil Engineering Co., Ltd.*..          152.50
CNBM International Corporation*.........................          152.50
Dezhou Yaohua Geosynthetics Ltd.*.......................          152.50
Dezhou Zhengyu Geosynthetics Ltd.*......................          152.50
Hongye Engineering Materials Co., Ltd.*.................          152.50
Hubei Nete Geosynthetics Ltd.*..........................          152.50
Jiangsu Dingtai Engineering Material Co., Ltd.*.........          152.50
Jiangsu Jiuding New Material Ltd.*......................          152.50
Lewu New Material Ltd.*.................................          152.50
Nanjing Jinlu Geosynthetics Ltd.*.......................          152.50
Nanjing Kunchi Composite Material Ltd.*.................          152.50
Nanyang Jieda Geosynthetics Co., Ltd.*..................          152.50
Qingdao Hongda Plastics Corp.*..........................          152.50
Shandong Dexuda Geosynthetics Ltd.*.....................          152.50

[[Page 12438]]

 
Shandong Haoyang New Engineering Materials Co., Ltd.*...          152.50
Shandong Tongfa Glass Fiber Ltd.*.......................          152.50
Shandong Xinyu Geosynthetics Ltd.*......................          152.50
Tai'an Haohua Plastics Co., Ltd.*.......................          152.50
Taian Hengbang Engineering Material Co., Ltd.*..........          152.50
Taian Naite Geosynthetics Ltd.*.........................          152.50
Taian Road Engineering Materials Co., Ltd.*.............          152.50
Tenax*..................................................          152.50
Hengshui Zhongtiejian Group Co.*........................          152.50
Qingdao Sunrise Dageng Import and Export Co., Ltd.*.....          152.50
------------------------------------------------------------------------

Provisional Measures

    Section 733(d) of the Act states that instructions issued pursuant 
to an affirmative preliminary determination may not remain in effect 
for more than four months. In the underlying investigation, the 
Department published the Preliminary Determination on June 24, 2016. 
Therefore, the four-month period beginning on the date of the 
publication of the Preliminary Determination ended on October 22, 2016. 
Furthermore, section 737(b) of the Act states that definitive duties 
are to begin on the date of publication of the ITC's final injury 
determination.
    Therefore, in accordance with section 733(d) of the Act and our 
practice, we instructed CBP to terminate the suspension of liquidation 
and to liquidate, without regard to antidumping duties, unliquidated 
entries of geogrids from the PRC entered, or withdrawn from warehouse, 
for consumption after October 22, 2016, the date the provisional 
measures expired, until and through the day preceding the date of 
publication of the ITC's final injury determination in the Federal 
Register. Suspension of liquidation will resume on the date of 
publication of the ITC's final determination in the Federal Register.

Critical Circumstances

    With regard to the ITC's negative critical circumstances 
determination on imports of geogrids from the PRC, we will instruct CBP 
to lift suspension and to refund any cash deposits made to secure the 
payment of estimated countervailing duties with respect to geogrids 
from the PRC entered, or withdrawn from warehouse, for consumption on 
or after March 26, 2016 (i.e., 90 days prior to the date of the 
publication of the CVD Preliminary Determination), but before June 24, 
2016 (i.e., the date of publication of the CVD Preliminary 
Determination).

Notifications to Interested Parties

    This notice constitutes the countervailing duty order with respect 
to geogrids from the PRC pursuant to section 706(a) of the Act. 
Interested parties can find a list of antidumping duty orders currently 
in effect at http://enforcement.trade.gov/stats/iastats1.html.
    This order is issued and published in accordance with section 
706(a) of the Act and 19 CFR 351.211(b).

    Dated: February 24, 2017.
Ronald K. Lorentzen,
Acting Assistant Secretary for Enforcement and Compliance.

Appendix

    The products covered by the scope are certain biaxial integral 
geogrid products. Biaxial integral geogrid products are a polymer 
grid or mesh material (whether or not finished, slit, cut-to-length, 
attached to woven or non-woven fabric or sheet material, or 
packaged) in which four-sided openings in the form of squares, 
rectangles, rhomboids, diamonds, or other four-sided figures 
predominate. The products covered have integral strands that have 
been stretched to induce molecular orientation into the material (as 
evidenced by the strands being thinner in width toward the middle 
between the junctions than at the junctions themselves) constituting 
the sides of the openings and integral junctions where the strands 
intersect. The scope includes products in which four-sided figures 
predominate whether or not they also contain additional strands 
intersecting the four-sided figures and whether or not the inside 
corners of the four-sided figures are rounded off or not sharp 
angles. As used herein, the term ``integral'' refers to strands and 
junctions that are homogenous with each other. The products covered 
have a tensile strength of greater than 5 kilonewtons per meter (kN/
m) according to American Society for Testing and Materials (ASTM) 
Standard Test Method D6637/D6637M in any direction and average 
overall flexural stiffness of more than 100,000 milligram-centimeter 
according to the ASTM D7748/D7748M Standard Test Method for Flexural 
Rigidity of Geogrids, Geotextiles and Related Products, or other 
equivalent test method standards.
    Subject merchandise includes material matching the above 
description that has been finished, packaged, or otherwise further 
processed in a third country, including by trimming, slitting, 
coating, cutting, punching holes, stretching, attaching to woven or 
non-woven fabric or sheet material, or any other finishing, 
packaging, or other further processing that would not otherwise 
remove the merchandise from the scope of the investigations if 
performed in the country of manufacture of the biaxial integral 
geogrid.
    The products subject to the scope are currently classified in 
the Harmonized Tariff Schedule of the United States (HTSUS) under 
the following subheading: 3926.90.9995. Subject merchandise may also 
enter under subheadings 3920.20.0050 and 3925.90.0000. The HTSUS 
subheadings set forth above are provided for convenience and U.S. 
Customs purposes only. The written description of the scope is 
dispositive.

[FR Doc. 2017-04132 Filed 3-2-17; 8:45 am]
 BILLING CODE 3510-DS-P