Duties

An Antidumping duty remedies injury caused by dumping and may be imposed at the level of the dumping margin. Antidumping duties are applied for 5 years, initially. This may be extended where a review establishes that the expiry of the duties would likely cause injury to recur.

A countervailing duty is imposed to counteract the effects of a product that has benefitted from a subsidy. The level of countervailing duty applied is based on the estimated amount of the subsidy applied. Remedies are usually imposed for five years initially and can be extended upon the conduct of a review.

Provisional Duties

If there is reasonable evidence of injury from dumping and/or subsidisation, the ADSC can impose provisional measures as little as 60 days from the date an investigation was started. These measures are used to prevent further injury from occurring during the remaining period of the investigation.

Similarly, a provisional safeguard duty may be imposed if there are reasonable grounds to believe that:

•           a delay in imposing a safeguard measure would cause damage to the industry that would be difficult to repair

•           increased imports are causing serious injury or threaten to cause serious injury

Final Duties

The Commission makes its recommendation of the final duty level for a remedy in the Notice of the Affirmative Determination sent to the portfolio Minister and the Minister of Finance. The Notice to the Ministry of Finance would inform an Order from the Minister, which would then guide the Jamaica Customs Agency to impose the relevant duty.

Following this recommendation for a final duty, any provisional duties cease to take effect.

Upon receipt of final recommendations from the Commission, the Minister may decide

  • The amount of anti-dumping duty can be less than the dumping margin if that is all that is needed to remedy the injury to the domestic industry
  • The amount of the countervailing duty recommended can be less where such lower amount is deemed adequate to remedy the injury to the domestic industry
  • Not to impose a duty

Also, duties may be deferred where an exporter’s undertaking to increase the export price to eliminate the margin of dumping or the effect of the subsidy is accepted by the Commission.