According to the China Rubber Industry Association, the U.S. Department of Commerce selected Shandong Yongsheng Rubber Group Co., Ltd. and Fujian Jiatong Tire Co., Ltd. as two compulsory respondent enterprises in the countervailing investigation procedure on August 14, and issued a questionnaire on the tire countervailing case at the same time.

This choice is based on the fact that according to the import data of Chinese enterprises from the U.S. Customs, the export volume of the two enterprises to the United States ranked among the top two in China in 2013. The U.S. Department of Commerce said that unless one of the two compulsory responding enterprises withdraws, it will not accept the voluntary responding application of any other enterprise (four enterprises, including Cooper, South China, Zhaoqing and Jianda, have submitted voluntary responding applications).

In the definition of products involved at the beginning of the countervailing questionnaire, the US Department of Commerce continued the product range in the filing announcement and did not explicitly exclude st tires (trailer tires). The Ministry of Commerce will select 2-3 compulsory respondent enterprises in the anti-dumping investigation procedure in the next few working days.

In the countervailing investigation, for the next work of domestic enterprises, except that the selected enterprises need to submit answers according to the specified deadline, the other enterprises that are not selected need not submit any answers, unless the U.S. Department of Commerce has a special questionnaire (such as the surprise export survey).

In the anti-dumping investigation, the enterprises that have submitted the questionnaire have to answer SRA (application for differentiated tax rate). In addition, individual enterprises selected as compulsory respondent enterprises will need to fill in more questionnaires.

According to Xu Wenying, Secretary General of China Rubber Industry Association, compulsory respondent enterprises play a very important role in double reaction litigation. The ruled double anti tax rate is related to the average tax rate of other respondent enterprises in the whole industry. Enterprises that do not participate in the response will suffer higher punitive tax rates.

It is understood that at present, the two compulsory respondent enterprises have selected experienced law firms and are seriously filling out the countervailing questionnaire to strive for a lower countervailing tax rate.

Source: China rubber network