Indonesia is considering imposing anti-dumping measures on hot rolled steel plate imported from China, India, Taiwan and Russia to protect local producers against unfair trading practices, a senior government official said.

Anshari Buchari, the director general of Metal, Machinery, Textile and Multifarious Industries at the Industry Ministry said in Jakarta on Monday that hot rolled plates (HRPs) were mostly produced by companies that had previously been slapped with dumping dutiesbetween 4 and 37 percent for selling their hot rolled coil (HRC) in Indonesia below domestic prices.

“They sold their HRC in Indonesian market in the form of  HRP in order to avoid import duties,” he told The Jakarta Post  after a hearing with Commission VI of the House of Representatives overseeing trade, industry and investment.

In addition to HRP steel products, the government was also considering imposing anti-dumping charges against aluminum plates imported from Malaysia and China.

“We are still conducting investigations. I hope we can soon decide the anti-dumping import duties for those products,” Anshari said. Based on evidence provided by local producers, the aluminum plates from the two countries were sold in Indonesia at vastly reduced prices.

During the hearing, Industry Minister M.S. Hidayat said the government should maximize the use of anti-dumping and safeguard measures to protect domestic manufacturers of electric, machinery, steel and iron products from the influx of cheaper Chinese products.

“We found that Indonesia’s exports of machinery, electric, steel and iron products to China drastically decreased between 2005 and the first quarter of 2010,” he said.

Contrary to the fact, he said, imports of similar products from China drastically increased.  

He suspected the sharp increase in the imports of Chinese machinery, electric, steel and iron products was due to unfair trading practices rather than the ASEAN -China Free Trade Area, which has gradually been implemented since 2002.

According to data from the Industry Ministry, in 2009, Indonesia’s exports of those four products to China reached US$375 million, far less than imports from the country, which amounted to  $1.73 billion.   

“We have a trade deficit $1.36 billion for those products,” he said.

Apart from anti-dumping and safeguard measures, he said, the government would also oblige the implementation of the Indonesian National Standard for machinery and electric, iron and steel products to protect local products.

Hidayat said his ministry suggested the simplification of bureaucracy in the investigation process, and the imposition of both safeguard import duties and anti-dumping or countervailing duties, to avoid bigger losses caused by the influx of imported Chinese goods. (ebf)