Geofabrics Australasia, which makes engineering construction products including landfill lining materials, is celebrating a decision by the Australian Customs and Border Protection Service, which has agreed German textile manufacturer Naue depressed prices, reduced sales and caused material injury to the local industry by dumping goods into the market. Naue will now be slapped with a notice imposing an anti-dumping duty on it for five years.

On October 15 the Minister for Home Affairs Brendan O’Connor published a dumping duty notice imposing anti-dumping measures on Naue after Customs found it was supplying products into Australia with a dumping margin of 26.7%, causing material injury to local industry. Naue is able to appeal the decision.

Geofabrics lodged the anti-dumping action on behalf of its wholly-owned subsidiary ELCO Solutions, which manufactures geosynthetic clay liners in Queensland for use in landfills and waste containment, and is the only manufacturer of this product in Australia.

Geofabrics’ MD Brendan Swifte welcomed the decision, saying “there has always been good solid price competition in the market” and his that company “embraces free trade principles, but on the basis that it is also fair trade – and the dumping of technical products at such a significant margin is clearly unfair trade”.

“The anti-dumping measures are welcome, but they are no consolation to the manufacturing employees made redundant due to Naue’s actions.

“In the current international economic slowdown, dumping products into a developed economy is an easy solution for large overseas companies. Such action seriously weakens the Australian manufacturing sector in the long term.”

While local customers may not have been too upset with a flood of cheap product on the market, Swifte points out that weakening the local market could eventually be a major disadvantage to customers as they lose access to tailor made products and potentially face longer lead times.

Geofabrics plans to soon launch a facility dedicated to R&D on lining systems, allowing it to collaborate with customers to develop products that are best suited to local conditions.

Jo Kellock, head of the Council of Textile and Fashion Industries of Australia Limited, congratulated Geofabrics and said it "is to be commended for having the courage to fight, and for putting the global market on notice that Australian companies are professional organisations who can and will enforce anti-dumping measures".