Washington, D.C. – Asia Pulp & Paper (APP), the leading exporter of coated paper from China and Indonesia, received today the lowest combined antidumping and countervailing duty (AD/CVD) margin among Chinese exporters, but is still disappointed with the U.S. Department of Commerce's final AD/CVD margin. According to APP, the Commerce Department adopted questionable calculation methodologies in rendering its final determination; whereas more proper methodologies would have yielded little to no AD/CVD duties.

"While we are disappointed in today's announcement of the final AD and CVD rates, we remain confident that the entire trade case will be thrown out at the conclusion of the International Trade Commission's injury investigation in mid-October," said Terry Hunley, Acting President, APP Americas.

The coated paper under investigation is typically used for printing multicolored graphics for catalogues, books, magazines, labels and wraps, greeting cards and other items requiring high-quality print graphics.

"This is the second such investigation conducted in the last two years, both of which have involved exports of coated paper produced by APP," Hunley noted.  "The prior investigation was terminated by the U.S. government because APP's imports of coated paper did not injure the U.S. industry.  We believe we will secure a similar result in this case. In fact, this investigation has even less basis than the last one, since the U.S. industry itself has benefited from large, direct federal subsidies for its production of the pulp used to make paper."

The U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC) held a hearing in the current case on Sept. 16 and will hold a final vote on Oct. 19. Only an affirmative decision that the domestic industry has been harmed by the subject imports would lead to the imposition of a duty order.

"As demonstrated before the ITC, our actions are not the cause of the domestic industry's problems," Hunley said. "We are not taking business away from the U.S. paper makers. In fact, domestic producers gained market share between 2007 and 2009. During that time we lost our largest U.S. customer to NewPage when NewPage lured them away with lower prices made possible by the enormous 'black liquor' subsidies they received."

The Commerce Department's final determination calls for a 25.2 percent AD/CVD duty rate on APP product from China.  No other Chinese company received a lower rate and other Chinese companies were assessed a 153.4 percent rate.  For APP product from Indonesia, a duty rate of 38.0 percent was announced.