The European Union has launched an anti-dumping procedure for the import of birch plywood from Russia. The complaint is brought by the Woodstock Consortium acting on behalf of the Union producers of birch plywood (complainants and supporting producers) representing an overwhelming majority (59%) of the total EU production of the product concerned. Source: Lesprom
The complaint contains information on normal value and export prices of the Russian exporting producers based on both the EU Complainants’ own market intelligence as well as on widely used and authoritative industry sources. The complaint demonstrates very high levels of dumping, ranging from 23% to 84%.
The anti-dumping investigation will cover the period from July 1, 2019 to June 30, 2020.
According to the EU Complainants, non-imposition of anti-dumping measures against imports from Russia will continue to cause material injury to the Union industry of birch plywood and that the very existence of the Union industry of birch plywood is therefore at stake. At the same time, the objective of anti-dumping measures is to level the playing field and their imposition should not therefore prevent imports from Russia entering the EU. This, in its turn, will have minimal if any impact on the downstream industry’s costs.
It is noted that the Union industry of birch plywood is suffering the material injury which is caused by the dumped imports from Russia. Such injury is a clear consequence of both the continuously increasing import volumes from Russia which reached an all-time high in 2019 and during the IP, and extremely low import prices which reached record low levels in the most recent past.
Such pressure from imports from Russia forced the EU producers of birch plywood to lower their prices in order to remain competitive and spare the EU mills from idling. As a result of such price suppression due to dumped imports from Russia the Union industry’s production and sales decreased significantly, leading to plummeting profitability and employment losses of more than 1400 workers between 2017 and the IP, according to the complaint.
