Oct. 7 (Bloomberg) -- The European Union may renew tariffs as high as 82 percent on synthetic fiber ropes from India to help Portuguese producers ward off lower-cost rivals, a step that would prolong 11-year-old trade protection.

The EU said it would consider re-imposing the levies for five more years on Garware-Wall Ropes Ltd. and other Indian makers of the ropes, which are used by ships for mooring and by the fishing industry. The levies are meant to counter below- cost, or “dumped,” sales by Indian exporters.

In 1998, the EU introduced an 82 percent anti-dumping duty on all Indian manufacturers of the product except Garware-Wall Ropes, which faced a reduced 53 percent levy. The EU prolonged those measures for five years in October 2004, citing the dumping threat from India faced by European producers located mainly in Portugal.

The new review “will determine whether the expiry of the measures would be likely, or unlikely, to lead to a continuation or recurrence of dumping and injury,” the European Commission, the 27-nation EU’s regulatory arm in Brussels, said today in the bloc’s Official Journal. The duties were due to lapse this week and will now remain in place during the probe, which can last as long as 15 months.

The inquiry results from a May 4 request by an industry group called Eurocord on behalf of producers accounting for more than half of the EU’s output of synthetic fiber ropes, according to the commission. Eurocord claims that letting the trade protection expire would probably lead to renewed dumping and injury, the commission said.

India’s share of the EU synthetic fiber-rope market fell to below 0.1 percent after the introduction of the 1998 duties, the EU said when re-imposing the levies in 2004.

By Jonathan Stearns
To contact the reporter on this story: Jonathan Stearns in Brussels at jstearns2@bloomberg.net