WASHINGTON — The International Trade Administration of the U.S. Department of Commerce published an amended preliminary determination in the Federal Register on Dec. 1 that posts the duty deposit rate for entries of R-134a from China at 232.3 percent.

However, Zhejiang Sanmei Chemical Ind. Co. Ltd. has challenged the Commerce Department’s calculations, which may lead to another amended preliminary determination.

On Oct. 7, 2016, the Commerce Department published its preliminary determination. On Oct. 19 the Department received timely filed allegations of ministerial errors in the preliminary determination. On Oct. 20 and Oct. 24 the department received timely filed reply comments.

The department’s policy is to analyze any comments received and, if appropriate, correct any significant ministerial error by amending the preliminary determination.

According to the Dec. 1 Federal Register: “The Department is amending the preliminary determination to reflect the correction of six ministerial errors it made in the calculation of the estimated weighted-average dumping margin for Sanmei, a mandatory respondent. These errors are significant ministerial errors ... because Sanmei’s margin increases from 137.23 percent to 232.3 percent as a result of correcting these ministerial errors.

“Because Sanmei is the only mandatory respondent eligible for a separate rate, Sanmei is the only respondent for which we individually calculated an estimated weighted average dumping margin. For this reason, we assigned Sanmei’s calculated rate to all non-examined separate rate respondents. With this amended preliminary determination, the estimated weighted-average dumping margin for each non-examined separate rate respondent is also amended to 232.3 percent.”

Click here to read the full amended preliminary determination published in the Federal Register.

Publication date: 12/5/2016

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