Greenhouse pepper dumping duty under review

Monday, June 8, 2015

by SUSAN MANN

If the dumping duty on greenhouse bell peppers from The Netherlands is removed, dumping of the product into the Canadian market will likely resume, the Canada Border Services Agency has determined.

The Agency released its finding Thursday and a statement of reasons will be posted on its website in 15 days.

The Agency was reviewing the duty, which has been in place for five years, after the Canadian International Trade Tribunal announced the review earlier this year. The next step in the process is for the Tribunal to do an inquiry to find out if removing the duty will likely result in injury to the Canadian industry.

The Trade Tribunal is the main independent, quasi-judicial body operating Canada’s trade remedies system.

The pepper duty was implemented in 2010 after the Tribunal found greenhouse peppers from The Netherlands were being dumped into the Canadian market in 2009 and were threatening to cause injury to Ontario growers. The current duty is 193 per cent added to the pepper’s export price. It’s set to expire on Oct. 18.

George Gilvesy, general manager of the Ontario Greenhouse Vegetable Growers, says the review started in January. “We are participating in this review. Our intent is to attempt to get the duty extended.”

The duty has been effective in stopping the pepper dumping, he says, noting the greenhouse vegetable growers organization considers the dumping would begin again if the duty were withdrawn.

Since the duty was put in place there has been almost zero shipments of Dutch peppers into Canada. “I think there was one load that came in by mistake,” he says.

“The global world for trading in peppers continues to be volatile,” he notes, adding many countries have imposed trade sanctions on Russia in reaction to Russia’s occupation of Crimea in the Ukraine.

“That’s one example where we believe we’re going to see more peppers in North America from The Netherlands this year because they can’t ship them into Russia,” he explains.

Many of the concerns greenhouse vegetable growers had five years ago are still there, Gilvesy adds.

For the review, the industry has to again demonstrate there will be injury to Canadian pepper growers because of the pepper dumping. Gilvesy says the review is almost a total repeat of the initial case “and the level of due diligence is quite high. You have to make your case, justify why you believe in your position” and provide data. The review hearings are scheduled for the last week of August.

The Trade Tribunal says in a notice on it website it will issue its decision on whether to extend the duty by Oct. 16. BF