Commerce Swaps Plywood SV Data on Remand, Drops AD Rate Slightly
The Commerce Department decided on remand to replace existing Brazilian surrogate value information to value respondent Jiangsu Senmao Bamboo and Wood Industry Co. with data from Malaysia. Submitting its third remand results to the Court of International Trade on May 9, Commerce dropped the respondent's AD rate in the 2019-20 review of the AD order on multilayered wood flooring from 16.17% to 14.35% (Jiangsu Senmao Bamboo and Wood Industry Co. v. United States, CIT # 22-00190).
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Most recently, the trade court sent back the agency's surrogate value data on Senmao's plywood, which consisted of Brazilian Global Trade Atlas data for plywood imported under Harmonized System subheading 4412.33 (see 2502180046). Commerce had deleted the Brazilian import data from Spain. Judge Jennifer Choe-Groves remanded the move, finding the deletion of this data led to a "distortion that increased the Brazilian plywood" surrogate values by 453%.
Choe-Groves told the agency to reopen the record to get accurate data or, should such data be unavailable, to use Malaysian import data from the review period, or "alternatively, the Brazilian import data for plywood from Spain for January 2019 or 2021 or 'another reasonable option.'" On remand, the agency reopened the record but didn't receive any submissions.
Commerce initially decided on remand to replace the January 2020 Brazilian plywood import data from Spain with the January 2019 Brazilian import data for Spanish plywood in an attempt to still use data from the primary surrogate country of Brazil. However, upon considering criticism from Senmao, the agency changed its tune and went with Malaysian import data for plywood during the review period.
The agency said it agrees with Senmao that Commerce's initial approach, "which mixes data from different time periods in the composite plywood SV calculation, is not our normal methodology because it may introduce unnecessary distortions in the data." The agency said the use of Malaysian import data "is the best of the data options on the record because it is fully contemporaneous with the POR and thus, the composite SV for plywood does not require any manipulation."