Anti-dumping and Countervailing Program

Ottawa, August 30, 2006

On June 1, 2006, the President of the Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) made a preliminary determination of dumping respecting single or multilayer cross-linked polyethylene tubing (PEX tubing) in nominal tubing sizes up to and including 1 inch or the metric equivalent, excluding cross-linked polyethylene tubing with an oxygen barrier layer, originating in or exported from the United States of America (United States), pursuant to subsection 38(1) of the Special Import Measures Act (SIMA).

In making this determination, the volumes of subject and like goods exported from the United States and all other countries, respectively, were analysed.  The vast majority of the goods imported under the relevant Harmonized System (HS) classifications are polyethylene and high-density polyethylene pipe and tubing (i.e. non-subject goods) that are intended for agricultural, industrial, oil-related, or other applications.  In order to attain a reasonable estimate of the quantity of imports of subject goods, the CBSA refined its import statistics for goods originating in or exported from the United States to reflect only the subject goods.  This refinement reduced the volumes of potentially subject goods from an original 125,240,048 kilograms to 2,960,827 kilograms by the time of initiation, and to 109,121 kilograms by the time of the preliminary determination.  Following this refinement, the volume of dumped goods from the United States was found to be above 3% of the total imports, and, therefore, not negligible.  Due to the large volume of importations and the additional resources further review would have required, importations from other countries were not adjusted in a similar manner, and all imports of goods falling under the relevant HS codes from these countries were treated as PEX tubing.  The end result of this adjustment was to reduce the relative quantity of imports of subject goods from the United States, thus resulting in a more conservative estimate of the United States’ share of total imports. 

After the preliminary determination, additional resources became available and the CBSA was able to continue to review the import data, including data from countries other than the United States.  This has resulted in a further refinement the import statistics as the investigation continued.  The final results of this refinement are summarised below:

Apparent Canadian Imports (2005)

Contacts:

Matthew Lerette
613-954-7398

Alex Lawton
613-954-7410