Chinese Exporters Challenge Romania Surrogate Pick in AD Review on Chlorinated Isocyanurates

Exporters Juancheng Kangtai Chemical Co. and Heze Huayi Chemical Co. filed a complaint on March 6 at the Court of International Trade to contest the Commerce Department's consideration of Romania as a surrogate country in the 2021-22 review of the antidumping duty order on chlorinated isocyanurates from China (Juancheng Kangtai Chemical Co. v. United States, CIT # 24-00026).

The exporters said that since Romania "was not submitted by the surrogate country deadline," Commerce's consideration of it was "contrary to its normal practice and thus is arbitrary and capricious." In addition, there was "better quality data available" for Malaysia, making the selection of Romania unsupported by substantial evidence, the companies argued.

During the review, the petitioner said Mexico should be used as the primary surrogate nation while the exporters said Malaysia was the proper pick. Kangtai and Heze Huayi said Commerce properly rejected Mexico as the best surrogate since it's "not at the same level of economic development as China," though the agency improperly picked Romania since the petitioner "failed to submit a Romanian record until the final surrogate value deadline when it was too late for Plaintiffs to submit alternative surrogate values in rebuttal."

In contrast with Romania, Malaysia "sourced multiple highly comparable financial statements while Romania only sourced one financial statement," the complaint said. Malaysia additionally had a "reliable and superior labor rate to Romania," while Romania lacked a "B&H value" and had inferior "water rate" and chlorine value as compared to Malaysia.