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The U.S. Department of Commerce announced on December 14 that it will instruct U.S. Customs to collect additional antidumping duties on imports of polyethylene retail carrier bags ("PRCBs") from Thailand entered into the United States during August 1, 2007 – July 31, 2008 that are manufactured by Master Packaging Co. Ltd. and Thai Plastic Bags Group ("TPBG"). The duties are 122.88 percent on imports from Master Packaging and 21.99 percent on imports from TPBG. PRCBs are generally used as grocery bags, food carryout bags, and retail shopping bags.

U.S. importers of this merchandise – who paid negligible antidumping duty cash deposits at the time of entry – will be liable for substantial additional antidumping duties. According to publicly available information obtained during the review, TPBG alone exported approximately $50 million of merchandise subject to the antidumping order during the period, leaving importers liable for about $11 million in duties. "Although it is unfortunate that certain U.S. importers will have to pay significant antidumping duties, that is an inherent risk of importing merchandise that is subject to an antidumping duty order," said Isaac Bazbaz, Director of Superbag Corporation of Houston, Texas.

In addition, importers must pay antidumping duty cash deposits at the time of entry on future imports equal to 122.88 percent on imports from Master Packaging and 21.99 percent on imports from TPBG.

"The domestic industry applauds the Commerce Department's final ruling, which will prevent TPBG from further abusing its previously low antidumping duty cash deposit rate and expanding its U.S. market share through unfair pricing," said Joe Dorn, a partner with King & Spalding, counsel for the coalition of domestic producers that brought the antidumping petition. "This decision should preserve existing jobs and create new jobs in the United States. It is an excellent example of how antidumping orders can promote U.S. manufacturing," added Dorn.

Antidumping orders are also in place on PRCBs from China and Malaysia. The Commerce Department is currently conducting an antidumping investigation on PRCBs from Indonesia, Taiwan, and Vietnam. The Department has already calculated preliminary dumping margins in those investigations ranging from to 9.10 percent to 67.62 percent for Indonesia, from to 28.69 percent to 95.81 percent for Taiwan, and from 52.30 percent to 76.11 percent for Vietnam. The domestic industry is closely monitoring official import statistics to identity unfairly priced imports from other countries that threaten to undermine the benefits of those remedial measures.

The domestic industry is also working with U.S. Customs and Border Protection to identify attempts by U.S. importers to circumvent the existing trade remedies. The industry is urging Customs to pursue criminal and civil fraud investigations where appropriate.

The purpose of the antidumping law is to offset the unfair competitive advantage that foreign exporters enjoy as a result of selling merchandise in the United States at less than fair value. The law provides for antidumping duties to be collected on imports that are subject to an antidumping order. Customs assesses antidumping duties based on application of the percentage dumping margin to the entered value of the merchandise.