Anti-dumping and countervailing duties on Indonesian paper exports have been lifted by the US International Trade Commission (USITC) following its recent five-year (sunset) review.

From September 2006, certain school supplies from Indonesia, principally lined paper, were charged an anti-dumping duty of between 97.85 and 118.63 percent and a countervailing duty of 40.55 percent.

Anti-dumping and countervailing duties offset unfairly priced or subsidized imports which are perceived as hurting producers in the recipient country.

“The USITC decision means that certain lined paper school supplies from Indonesia no longer cause material losses to the US domestic industry,” the Trade Ministry’s Ernawati said in a statement on Thursday.

The commission recommended that the US Department of Commerce the anti-dumping and countervailing duties on paper from Indonesia, while maintaining the measures on similar products from China and India.

The investigation into the case was initiated in October 2005 by the Association of American School Paper Suppliers against PT Tjiwi Kimia, a subsidiary of the large Indonesian paper producer Sinar Mas Group, and a few months later, the US commission issued a preliminary ruling levying the anti-dumping duty.

Ernawati expected Indonesia to regain its edge in the US school supplies market following the removal of the duties, which had a very severe impact on exports.

Trade Ministry statistics show exports of the paper in question stood at US$98.5 million in 2005 before the introduction of the duties. Between 2006 and 2009, exports stopped completely. The trade was resurrected in 2010 with a value of only $16,000, which now more than three-fold to $58,000 in 2011.

Indonesia, the ninth-largest pulp and paper producer in the world, has faced recurrent dumping allegations as local practices make the products efficiently and at low cost, partly thanks to the tropical climate and the shortened lifecycle of trees.

Producing around 8 million tons of pulp and paper annually, Indonesia can manufacture paper at a production cost of only $200 per ton, according to an estimate by the Indonesian Pulp and Paper Association (APKI).

Last month, Thailand’s authorities ended their dumping allegations against Indonesian coated paper and paper boards after an investigation found no dumping indications by local paper makers.

However, in the same month, another new allegation came from Japan accusing 11 firms under two local giants — Sinar Mas Group and PT Riau Andalan Pulp and Paper — of dumping photocopy paper at a margin ranging from 7.55 percent to 15.78 percent.