On December 4, 2014 Mexico announced the initiation of an AD investigation on imports of apples from the United States. The Mexican government has now reached a preliminary determination on the case, and on January 6, 2016 it published the preliminary duties. In its Diario Oficial notice, SE indicates that there is sufficient evidence to support in a preliminary manner that, during the investigation period, imports of apples from the United States were sold at discriminatory prices and caused injury to the domestic industry. Some of the conclusions are the following:
- Imports of apples from the U.S. were made with dumping margins of up to 20.82 percent during the period of investigation. Such imports represented 98 percent of total imports.
- The imports investigated registered growth both in absolute terms and relative to the market size and domestic production over the period analyzed. This resulted in the displacement of domestic sales and a larger share of U.S. imports in the Mexican market.
- The prices of the imports investigated decreased during the investigation period and were lower than the average price of domestic sales in the months previous to the harvest during the period investigated.
- Imports of apples caused the deterioration of relevant indicators of the domestic apple industry production in the period analyzed, and particularly in the period investigated; in particular, the share of domestic sales and production in the Mexican market, the income from total sales and the domestic market, as well as gross profits and gross operating margin.
- The projections provided by UNIFRUT to support the analysis of threat of injury are based on a reasonable methodology and historical figures for both imports and economic and financial indicators of the domestic industry, and allows the SE to observe a probability that in case no AD duties were imposed, an increase of imports would aggravate the injury to the domestic industry.
- The United States has export potential several times the size of the domestic market, and U.S. apple exports to the domestic market were increasing in absolute and relative terms, and were made at low prices. However, the likelihood that the imports under investigation continue to increase in the immediate future depends on what is determined in the next stage of antidumping proceedings.
- The SE believes that although there could be other factors causing injury to the domestic industry besides the imports under investigation, the presence and behavior of the imports with price discrimination, and prices at which imports were made, had a direct impact on the performance of various indicators of the domestic producers.
Due to the large number of U.S. producers/exporters of apples to Mexico, SE limited its examination in the AD investigation to the 11 largest U.S. producers/exporters of apples during the period of investigation. The SE decided to impose the following preliminary antidumping duties:
- Broetje: 17.22 %
- Chiawana: 8.27%
- CPC: zero
- Custom Apple: 5.55%
- Evans: 2.44%
- Gilbert: 7.39%
- Monson: zero
- Northern Fruit: 9.45%
- Stemilt: 10.14%
- Washington Fruit: zero
- Zirkle: 20.82%
- Producers/exporters not part of the sample: 7.55%
- All others: 20.82%
Important Dates
1. Publication Date: January 6, 2016
2. Effective Date: January 7, 2015
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