F&P wins dumping fight, but the war goes on

By ELLEN READ

The Government's imposition of final anti-dumping duties on imports of fridges and washing Machines from Korea may not be the end of the row.

Importers and retailers of Korean brands say the decision will not affect them because they are now getting their products from other markets.

But Fisher & Paykel chief executive Gary Paykel, whose company made the original complaint, said that if the replacement product was also being dumped, action would be taken.

Fisher & Paykel's objection to the Korean imports was officially upheld yesterday.

Commerce Minister Paul Swain said that although "our manufacturers are happy to compete on an equal footing with international suppliers," the Government "will not stand for unfair practices that put New Zealand manufacturers and local jobs at risk."

Mr Swain said a six-month investigation by the ministry found that "all the Korean refrigerator and washing machine imports it looked at were being dumped on the New Zealand market."

Fisher & Paykel is understood to have a whiteware market share of about 65 per cent. Australian firm Email's brands Simpson and Westinghouse make up 15 to 20 per cent, and the Korean importers have 15 per cent.

The main stockist of Korean fridges is the Pacific Retail Group, which operates Samsung-selling Bond & Bond and Noel Leeming.

The Warehouse stocks Korean washing machines.

Brent Albiston, managing director of Porirua-based Korean appliance importer Radiola, said the decision came as no surprise, and his company now obtained the same Samsung products from factories in China and Thailand, which were not affected by the anti-dumping duties.

"It's been a bit of a hiccup and we've lost some sales as a result of it, but we're picking up again now and supply is going to continue," he said.

"I don't think Fisher & Paykel in the end will achieve very much from what they've done."

Pacific Retail Group chief executive Peter Halkett said that if F&P's goal was to eliminate Korean products it had achieved that. But competition would not be reduced because of the appliances from Thailand and China.

"The whole exercise has been, I would imagine, quite expensive for them," Mr Halkett said, "and quite disruptive for the customers."

But Mr Paykel said he was pleased with the decision, which vindicated his company's stance.

"Obviously the competition was very unfair and that's where the Ministry of Economic Development people see it."

He agreed that there was unlikely to be any less competition as a result.

"There's so much there now and there's no doubt we'll be seeing competition from other countries in the not-too-distant future."

But he had a warning that, although the company was happy to face fair competition, it would take similar action if any replacement products were also being dumped.

Mr Paykel also queried the suggestion that appliances were already being bought from Thailand and China because they did not appear in import statistics he had, which went up to April.

"If they have [been bringing them in already] they're incorrectly labelled," he said.

After an initial investigation this year, the Government imposed interim duties of 25 to 71 per cent on Korean fridges. Washing machines attracted interim duties of between 52 and 93 per cent.

The final duties on all sizes of washing machines and most sizes of refrigerator are lower than the provisional duties. They are calculated a different way, but equate to about one-third lower for fridges and half lower for washing machines.

The duties have been imposed on products from the three main Korean exporters: Samsung Electronics, LG Electronics and Daewoo Electronics, using a reference price method, meaning duty is payable if the Korean washing machines and refrigerators are priced below the reference price.

The amount of duty varies according to the brand and price but, for example, a 220-litre Samsung fridge imported with an on-the-wharf value of $400 would attract $74.85 in duty to bring its price up to the ministry's reference price for that model.

Similarly, an LG washing machine of 5.5kg capacity imported with an value of $450 would attract $53.36 in duty to bring it up to the reference price.