Anti-dumping investigations in Ukraine: how Chinese rolled metal bypasses the duty through Malaysia
Chinese manufacturers of metal wires, fasteners and polymer-coated rolled products avoided paying the anti-dumping duty imposed on the relevant products in Ukraine by resorting to manipulations with the country of origin of the goods, said Vladislav Suvorov, Deputy Chairman of the State Customs Service of Ukraine, during the conference "Trade wars: the art of protection."
In particular, in 2024, when anti-dumping measures for a number of relevant Chinese-made metallurgical products came into force, the GMS recorded a significant decrease in imports from China, while at the same time a rapid increase in supplies to Ukraine of similar products made in Malaysia.
"For example, 22 thousand tons of rolled products (with polymer coating-ed.) were imported from Malaysia last year, 1.5 thousand tons of wires. Moreover, before the introduction of the decision by the Interdepartmental Commission, there were no imports of these goods from Malaysia at all (in 2023-ed.). That is, we see that there is manipulation with the country of origin," Suvorov said.
He acknowledged that the GMS has limited response tools at the stage of customs control and clearance of goods for which importers may resort to manipulation. During the inspection, customs officers can only verify the availability of a certificate of origin issued by the Chamber of Commerce and Industry of the relevant country.
"such certificates were provided, we completed the registration. And already within the framework of the authority to verify certificates of origin, we send relevant requests to Malaysia. Among the hundreds of requests that we sent, we received only 26 responses that confirmed that the certificates that were submitted to us during customs clearance were falsified. They were not provided to the Malaysian Chamber of Commerce and Industry, and there is a clear manipulation of the country of origin," he said.
At the same time, attempts by the State Migration Service to collect anti-dumping duties from such importers are often not very successful: "It turns out that the importing company has UAH 1,000 of authorized capital, non–resident directors, and it is almost impossible to recover funds from it," Suvorov explained.
He also noted that suppliers may resort to underestimating the customs value of goods by the amount of the anti-dumping duty and use other commodity codes that do not fall under anti-dumping, as, for example, was the case with the supply of freezing equipment to Ukraine from China in 2008.
It should be recalled that in April, the interdepartmental Commission on International Trade under the Ministry of Economy of Ukraine violated three anti-dumping investigations concerning the facts of anti-dumping tax evasion.