Two major US synthetic yarn producers–Unifi Manufacturing and Nan Ya Plastics Corporation America–recently filed petitions alleging that dumped imports of polyester textured yarn from Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand and Vietnam are causing material injury to the domestic industry. The purpose of the petitions is to establish conditions of fair competition in the US market.
The petitioning domestic producers have asked the US government to investigate the dumping and injury and to impose anti-dumping duties on the imports of polyester textured yarn from the four countries, according to a press release from international law firm Kelley Drye & Warren LLP.
The products affected by this case are made by Unifi at its production facility in Yadkinville, North Carolina, and by Nan Ya at its production facility in Lake City, South Carolina.
The petitions were filed concurrently with the United States Department of Commerce and the United States International Trade Commission.
The filing is in response to surging volumes of unfairly-priced polyester textured yarn imports from the four nations. In January 2020, anti-dumping and countervailing duty orders were put in place on imports of polyester textured yarn from China and India.
Imports from Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand and Vietnam replaced the imports from China and India and surged into the US market, causing further injury to US producers. Subject import volume increased from 23.8 million pounds in 2017 to 43.3 million pounds in 2019, or by approximately 81.7 per cent over that three-year period.
Polyester textured yarn imports from the subject countries continued to rapidly enter the US market in the first half of 2020. The subject imports undersold the domestic industry, taking sales from and exerting considerable downward pricing pressure on US producers.
