The European Commission said Tuesday it will require all EU biodiesel imports from Argentina and Indonesia to be registered, so that any future decision to apply import tariffs as a result of an ongoing anti-dumping case against those countries may be applied retroactively.
The regulation will come into effect Wednesday and will last for nine months.
The EC said that it had sufficient evidence that "imports of the product concerned from the countries concerned are being dumped," and that, "the exporters' dumping practices are causing material injury," to require registration of imports pending a final decision.
Furthermore, due to the potential for "massive" dumped imports in a relatively short space of time and since importers were likely to be already stockpiling product in preparation for peak demand levels in the spring and summer, duties would need to be retroactive in order to be effective, the EC said.
The EC's decision in the anti-dumping case is due by May 29. Any tariff would be decided on the basis of the findings of the investigation.
However, the complainant, the European Biodiesel Board, mentioned dumping margins ranging between 18% and 29% for Indonesia, between 40% and 50% for Argentina, and injury margins between 28.5% and 29.5% for Argentina and between 35.5% and 37.5% for Indonesia.
"We hope that this will be the first right move to put an end to an unacceptable situation whereby our industry has been heavily injured by unfair imports for too long," said Raffaello Garofalo, EBB secretary general.
A parallel complaint against subsidies for biodiesel that Argentina and Indonesia export to the EC is also ongoing. A decision on the second complaint is due by August 10.
