Canada to Roll Out Anti-Dumping Policy Changes, Aluminum Import Monitoring System

The Canadian government recently announced policy and regulation changes that it argues “will help improve Canada’s trade remedy system for all sectors.”
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Earlier this month, Canada announced changes to its anti-dumping policy, in addition to the establishment of a new aluminum import monitoring and a pledge to strengthen its existing steel import monitoring system.
“Amendments are being made to the Special Import Measures Regulations to ensure that an appropriate level of anti-dumping duties can be applied to goods that are dumped into Canada,” the Department of Finance said in a release.
“This will provide greater flexibility to the Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) to address situations where there may be distortions in the price of the goods in the country of export. It clarifies alternative methods to calculate the costs of production of the imported goods, in cases where the price of inputs is distorted because of purchases made between affiliated companies or because of a particular market situation.”
Anti-dumping policy changes will also help the CBSA in its attempts to determine whether a product has been dumped.
“This will make it easier for the CBSA to compare the price of the goods imported into Canada with the price of the goods sold by the same exporter to a different country, to find whether there is dumping,” the Department of Finance said. “Changes will also allow the CBSA to better identify dumping that occurs in targeted patterns and is hidden by high prices.”
In addition, as of Sept. 1, 2019, certain aluminum products will be added to the Import Control List.
“Aluminum importers will be required to cite the GIP on CBSA import declarations in order to import the products into Canada,” the Department of Finance continued. “As a direct result of these changes, the industry and the Government will have access to more timely aluminum import data—making it easier to quickly identify whether global oversupply of aluminum is making its way to Canada.”
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Meanwhile, the Aluminum Association in the U.S. applauded the Canadian government’s announced reforms.
“Strong trade enforcement is absolutely essential to a fair, rules-based global trading system,” said Lauren Wilk, the Aluminum Association’s vice president for policy. “Including aluminum products in Canada’s import monitoring system will help government officials and the industry to identify trends in trade flows and address aluminum misclassification, transshipment and evasion of duties.
“The Aluminum Association has been a strong advocate for the creation of an aluminum import monitoring system in the United States to address similar issues in our country, and we look forward to working with the U.S. government to develop a program that will help ensure U.S. aluminum producers can compete on a level playing field within North America.”