Commerce Drops CVD Rate for China's EBCP From 10.54% to 0.87% in CVD Review

The Commerce Department on June 10 changed the subsidy that it used to derive the adverse facts available countervailing duty rate for China's Export Buyer's Credit Program in a CVD review, following a rebuke from the Court of International Trade. In its remand results in a suit on the 2017 review on narrow woven ribbons from China, Commerce used the 0.87% subsidy rate for the Export Seller's Credit Program in a CVD proceeding on chrlorinated isocyanurates from China to set the CVD rate for the EBCP (Yama Ribbons and Bows Co. v. United States, CIT # 20-00059).

The trade court in April remanded the agency's use in the review on ribbons of a 10.54% CVD rate for the EBCP, which was taken from the CVD rate on preferential lending rates to China's coated paper industry (see 2404100074). The court said there wasn't enough evidence on which the court could find that the coated paper lending rates program was similar enough to the EBCP, which would justify using the lending rates CVD margin for the EBCP.

Commerce said on remand that it revisited the third step of its "CVD AFA hierarchy," in which the agency "applies the highest non-de minimis rate calculated for an identical or similar program in another CVD proceeding involving the same country." The agency said it found that the Export Seller's Credit Program and the EBCP "are similar because both programs confer the same type of benefit."

Both programs "are subsidized loan programs administered by the Export-Import Bank of China to support Chinese industry and trade of merchandise between Chian and foreign countries," the remand results said. The agency said the trade court has already found these programs to be similar for purposes of the third-step in the CVD AFA hierarchy, citing the court's 2020 decision in Bio-Lab v. U.S. and its 2019 decision in Clearon Corp. v. U.S.

No parties submitted comments on the remand results.