WORLD TRADE  
ORGANIZATION  G/SG/N/6/DOM/2 
30 October 2009 
 
 (09-5425) 
Committee on Safeguards Original:   Spanish 
  
 
NOTIFICATION UNDER ARTICLE 12.1(A) OF THE AGREEMENT 
ON SAFEGUARDS ON INITIATION OF AN INVESTIGATION 
PROCEDURE AND THE REASONS FOR IT 
 
DOMINICAN REPUBLIC 
 
(Toilet paper
) 
   The following communication, dated 26 October 2009, is being circulated at the request of 
the delegation of the Dominican Republic. 
 
_______________ 
 
  The Dominican Republic wishes to notify the annexed Resolution No. CDC-RD-SG-039-
2009 of 9 October 2009, published in the newspaper El Nacional  of the Dominican Republic on 
12 October 2009, whereby the Regulatory Commis sion on Unfair Trade Practices and Safeguard 
Measures of the Dominican Republic decided to initiat e an investigation procedure with a view to the 
application of safeguard measures to imports of toilet paper, classified under subheading 4818.10.00 
of the Dominican Republic's tariff schedule. 
 
 This notification, together with the annexes thereto, is made under Article 12.1(a) of the 
WTO Agreement on Safeguards.  To this end, th e Dominican Republic hereby submits the following: 
 
• Notice of the initiation of an investigation pr ocedure with a view to the application of 
a safeguard measure, based on the format set out in Article 12.1(a) of the 
WTO Agreement on Safeguards. 
• Resolution No. CDC-RD-SG-039-2009. G/SG/N/6/DOM/2 
Page 2  
 
  1. Date of initiation of the investigation 
 
 12 October 2009, by means of a notice published in the newspaper El Nacional  and on the 
Regulatory Commission website.  Attached hereto  is a copy of the Resolution initiating the 
investigation. 
 
2. Product subject to the investigation 
 
 Toilet paper.  The product is currently cl assified under tariff heading 4818.10.00 of the 
Spanish version of the Harmonized Commodity De scription and Coding System, which incorporates 
the fourth amendment thereto (HS 2007). 
 
3. Reasons for the initiation of the investigation 
 
 (a) The investigation was initiated at the requ est of Industrias Nigua, in its capacity as the 
domestic industry, and on the basis of the information and evidence which it 
submitted. 
  (b) The Regulatory Commission, as the investigating authority of the Dominican 
Republic, determined from the information and evidence supplied by the applicant that there were sufficient grounds for presuming that toilet paper was being imported 
in such increased quantities, in absolute terms, relati ve to domestic production and 
domestic consumption, and under such conditions as to cause serious injury to the domestic industry that produces like or directly competitive products.  For further details, please refer to the attached Resolu tion.  The evidence justifying initiation of 
the said investigation includes the following: 
 
• The increase of forty-two per cent (42 per cent) in the volume of toilet paper 
imports during the period under investigati on would appear to be the cause of 
the injury facing the domestic industry that translates into a fall of twenty-seven per cent (27 per cent) in the production and the use of installed capacity of the applicant enterprise, as well as a decline of twenty-five per cent (25 per cent) in the number of jobs and a significant loss of share in the 
domestic toilet paper market; 
• A comparative analysis of the imports and the production of Industrias Nigua 
revealed that the imports represented three hundred and twenty-eight per cent (328 per cent) of the production of the latter in 2008, up from one hundred and sixty-nine per cent (169 per cent) in 2006.  Consequently, according to 
the evidence which has been submitted to date and which the Commission 
itself has been able to gather, imports of toilet paper into the Dominican 
Republic can be considered to have experienced a significant increase. 
  G/SG/N/6/DOM/2 
 Page 3 
 
 
  DOMINICAN REPUBLIC 
Regulatory Commission on Unfair Trade Practices 
and Safeguard Measures 
Santo Domingo, National District 
 
"Year of the Centenary of the Birth of Juan Bosch" 
 
RESOLUTION NO. CDC-RD-SG-039-2009 
 
PROVIDING FOR THE INITIATION OF A GENERAL SAFEGUARD INVESTIGATION AS 
A RESULT OF THE INCREASE IN IMPORTS OF TOILET PAPER INTO THE 
DOMINICAN REPUBLIC 
 
 The Regulatory Commission on Unfair Trade Practices and Safeguard Measures (hereinafter "the Commission"), in exercise of the legal powers conferred upon it by Article 84(a) and (b) of Law 
No. 1-02 of the Dominican Republic on Unfair Trade Practices and Safeguard Measures of 
18 January 2002 (hereinafter "the Law"), has deliberated on the basis of the following:  
WHEREAS: 
 
 On the twelfth (12
th) day of January of the year one thousand nine hundred and ninety-five 
(1995), the Congress of the Dominican Republic ratif ied the Agreement Establishing the World Trade 
Organization (hereinafter "WTO") (promulgated pursuant to Resolution No. 2-95 of 20 January 1995);   The Dominican Republic is bound by the WTO Agreements, including the Anti-Dumping 
Agreement, the Agreement on Subsidies a nd Countervailing Measures and the Agreement on 
Safeguards;   The WTO Agreement on Safeguards sets out the s ubstantive and procedural provisions for the 
adoption of safeguard measures;  
 On the eighteenth (18
th) day of January of the year two thousand and two (2002), the 
Dominican Republic enacted Law No. 1-02 on Unfair  Trade Practices and Safeguard Measures, which 
establishes a set of provisions and procedures to prevent or remedy any injury to a domestic industry that may be caused by unfair foreign trade practices and to provide for appropriate temporary measures in the event of imports in such increased  quantities and under such conditions as to cause or 
threaten to cause serious injury to  domestic producers of like products; 
  Pursuant to Article 82 of Law No. 1-02, th e Commission was established as a decentralized 
public body endowed with functional, jurisdictiona l and financial autonomy, its own assets, legal 
personality, and legal capacity to acquire rights, contract obligations and perform the tasks and 
exercise the functions specified in the said Law and its Regulations; 
 
 On the fifteenth (15
th) day of September of the year two thousand and eight (2008), pursuant 
to Resolution No. 003-08 and in strict compliance with Article 84(f) of Law No. 1-02, the Regulatory Commission approved the Implementing Regulati ons for the aforementioned Law No. 1-02; 
 
 The powers and duties of the Commission under the aforementioned Law include to conduct, 
at the request of an interested party or ex officio , any investigation required for the purposes of this 
Law and its regulations in order to determine, where appropriate, the application of anti-dumping 
and countervailing duties and safeguard
 measures  (emphasis added); 
 G/SG/N/6/DOM/2 
Page 4  
 
   In view of the foregoing, on 10 August 2009, the legal representative of INDUSTRIAS 
NIGUA, C. POR A . submitted to the Regulatory Commission a request (received on 17 August) for 
the application of safeguard measures to impor ts of toilet paper falling under tariff heading 
4818.10.00 on the grounds of "the exceptionally larg e volumes from El Salvador and Costa Rica", and 
enclosed with this request certain info rmation considered to be confidential; 
 
 Subsequently, by means of Communication No. 677 of 1 September 2009, the Commission sent INDUSTRIAS NIGUA, C. POR A.  a questionnaire seeking further information and, at the same 
time, requested non-confidential summaries of the information submitted on a confidential basis by 
this enterprise; 
 
 On 11 September 2009, in response to the aforementioned request, the representative of INDUSTRIAS NIGUA, C. POR A.  submitted to the Regulatory Commission the documents 
requested in Communication No. 677;  
 Following the submission by the applicant of the missing documents, these were examined by 
the Investigations Department (hereinafter "the DE I") of the Commission, pursuant to Article 4, First 
paragraph, of the Implementing Regulations.  Th e DEI subsequently issued preliminary report 
No. CDC-RD/SG/2009-003 (hereinafter "the technical  report"), the public version of which is an 
integral part of this Resolution;  
 Safeguard measures are designed to regulate im ports on a temporary basis in order to prevent 
or remedy serious injury to a domestic industry and to facilitate adjustment for domestic producers
1; 
  As a threshold matter, and prior to studying the admissibility of the application for a safeguard measure, the Commission must ensure that the applicant is eligible, in its capacity as the 
domestic industry, to request that this Re gulatory Commission apply safeguard measures; 
  Article 18(xxvii) of the Implementing Regula tions for Law No. 1-02 defines the domestic 
industry as follows:  
"Producers as a whole of the like or directly competitive products operating within 
the Dominican Republic, or those who se collective output constitutes a major 
proportion of the total domestic production of those products "; 
 Article 25, paragraph 1, of Law No. 1-02, for its part, states that "domestic industry" shall 
mean all domestic producers of like or directly competitive goods, or a proportion of those domestic 
producers whose collective output of like or direc tly competitive products accounts for at least 
fifty per cent (50 per cent) of the total domestic production of processed goods; 
  Furthermore, with regard to the possibility of initiating an investigation procedure with a view 
to the application of safeguard measures, Article 59 of the aforementioned Law provides that an investigation to determine whether or not to impose safeguards shall be initiated upon application 
lodged with the Commission by an enterprise or  a group of enterprises representing at least 
twenty-five per cent (25 per cent) of domestic produ ction of the like or directly competitive product; 
  The technical report states that INDUSTRIAS NIGUA, C. POR A.  is one of the 
five (5) domestic enterprises engaged in the ma nufacture of the product under investigation.  
According to the data provided, this enterprise re presents 37 per cent of total domestic production and 
its application therefore complies with the require ment laid down in the aforementioned provisions; 
 
                                                     
 
1 Article 57 of Law No. 1-02 on Unfair  Trade Practices and Safeguard Measures.  G/SG/N/6/DOM/2 
 Page 5 
 
 
   In view of the foregoing, and taking into consideration the fact that INDUSTRIAS NIGUA, 
C. POR A.  is not the only manufacturer of toilet pape r in the Dominican Republic, the Regulatory 
Commission has noted that, as stated in the technical  report, up to this point in the preliminary 
investigation, the DEI has only b een able to analyse data provide d by the applicant enterprise to 
establish whether there was a sudden, unforeseen and recent  increase in toilet paper imports to 
constitute the grounds for the initiation of an inves tigation, as affirmed by Industrias Nigua in its 
application for the imposition of safeguard measures;   This collegiate body must establish, on the basi s of the evidence submitted by the applicant to 
date and the evaluation by the DEI, whether there is  sufficient evidence to initi ate an investigation for 
the purpose of determining the  possible  application of safeguard meas ures to imports of toilet paper 
into the Dominican Republic;   The analysis of emergency measures in respect of the imports of a product is based on Article XIX of the GATT 1994, which states the following: 
 
"If, as a result of unforeseen developments and of the effect of the obligations 
incurred by a contracting party under th is Agreement, including tariff concessions , 
any product is being imported into the terr itory of that contracting party in such 
increased quantities and under such conditions as to cause or threaten serious injury 
to domestic producers in that territory of like or directly competitive products, the 
contracting party shall be free , in respect of such product, and to the extent and for 
such time as may be necessary to prevent or  remedy such injury, to suspend the 
obligation in whole or in part or to withdraw or modify the concession" (emphasis added); 
 According to the technical report, a comparativ e analysis of the imports and the production of 
Industrias Nigua revealed that the imports repr esented three hundred and twenty-eight per cent 
(328 per cent) of the production of the latter in  2008, up from one hundred and sixty-nine per cent 
(169 per cent) in 2006.  Consequently, on the basis of the evidence which has been submitted to date 
and which the DEI has been able to gather, this Commission has been able to determine that imports 
of toilet paper into the Dominican Republic  have experienced a significant increase; 
 
 With regard to the existence of a causal li nk between the increased imports of the product 
concerned and serious injury or threat thereof, the DE I for its part stated in its technical report that:  
"For the purpose of establishing a possible causal lin k and of substantiating the "logical connection", 
should one exist, between increased imports and injury to  the domestic industry, up to this stage of the 
investigation, the DEI has only been able to establish that, in principle, there might be evidence of a 
possible direct link between the increased imports of toilet paper and the current trade situation 
affecting Industrias Nigua "; 
  Article 63(a) of Law No. 1-02 provides that, with in a period of 30 days as from the date of the 
application for an investigation, the Commission shall:  "(a) Accept the applic ation, having deemed 
that there are conditions warranting such a deci sion;  the existence of due grounds shall be 
established by ascertaining that the application is being filed on behalf of a representative portion of 
the domestic industry and that there is sufficient evide nce of increased imports, injury or the threat of 
serious injury, and of the causal link between them" ; 
  After reading and studying the technical repor t submitted by the DEI, this collegiate body 
may, in principle, consider there to be evidence th at the increase of forty-two per cent (42 per cent) in 
the volume of toilet paper imports during the period  under investigation is the cause of the injury 
facing the domestic industry that translates into a fall of twenty-seven per cent (27 per cent) in the 
production and the use of installed capacity of the applicant enterprise, as well as a decline of G/SG/N/6/DOM/2 
Page 6  
 
  twenty-five per cent (25 per cent) in the number of jobs and a significant loss of share in the domestic 
toilet paper market;   Notwithstanding the above, in order to be able to establish the possibility of applying a 
safeguard measure, this Commission must determine by means of the investigation being initiated 
pursuant to this Resolution that, as provi ded for by the WTO Appellate Body in Argentina – 
Footwear,  "There must be 'such increased quantities' as to  cause or threaten to  cause serious injury 
to the domestic industry (...) " and moreover that, in line with th e provisions of Article 2.1 of the 
Agreement on Safeguards and Article  XIX:1(a) of the GATT 1994, " the increase in imports must 
have been recent enough, sudden enough, sharp enough, and significant enough, both quantitatively 
and qualitatively, to cause or threaten to cause 'serious injury'" ; 
  Article 3.1 of the Agreement on Safeguards states the following:  
"A Member may apply
 a safeguard measure only  following an investigation by the 
competent authorities of that Member pursuant to procedures previously established 
and made public in consonance with Artic le X of GATT 1994.  This investigation 
shall include reasonable public notice to all interested parties and public hearings or 
other appropriate means in which importers , exporters and other interested parties 
could present evidence and their views, including the opportunity to respond to the presentations of other parties and to submit their views, inter alia , as to whether or 
not the application of a safeguard measure  would be in the public interest.  The 
competent authorities shall publish a report setting forth their findings and reasoned conclusions reached on all pertinent issues of fact and law"; 
 WTO Appellate Body jurisprudence exists with regard to the investigation referred to in the 
aforementioned Article 3.1 ( United States - Wheat Gluten , paragraph 54), as follows: 
 
"The focus of the investigative steps me ntioned in Article 3.1 is on "interested 
parties", who must be notified of the i nvestigation, and who must be given an 
opportunity to submit "evidence", as well as their "views"
, to the competent 
authorities.  The interested parties are also to be given an opportunity to "respond to the presentations of other parties".  The Agreement on Safeguards, therefore, 
envisages that the interested parties play a central role in the investigation and that 
they will be a primary source of information for the competent authorities " (emphasis 
added); 
 In turn, Article 2 of the Agreement on Safe guards provides that "A Member may apply a 
safeguard measure  to a product only if that Member has determined, pursuant to the provisions set out 
below (Article 3 et al) , that such product is being imported into its territory in such increased 
quantities, absolute or relative to domestic produc tion, and under such conditions as to cause or 
threaten to cause serious injury to the domestic industry that produces like or directly competitive 
products" (material in brac kets and emphasis added); 
  Accordingly, in order to proceed with the investigation provided for in the aforementioned 
Article and covered by existing international jurispru dence, and taking into consideration the fact that 
the DEI has no information on the production levels of the other toilet paper producer enterprises, this 
Commission determines, on the basi s of the information submitted by INDUSTRIAS NIGUA , that 
conditions do exist which warrant the initiation of an investigation procedure, as established in 
Article 3 of the Agreement on Safeguards and Artic le 66 of Law No. 1-02, by means of which the 
appropriateness of applying safeguard measures to imports of toilet paper falling under tariff heading 
4818.10.00 shall be determined, fo llowing a detailed study of the evidence and views that may be 
presented by the applicant, importers, expor ters and other interested parties;  G/SG/N/6/DOM/2 
 Page 7 
 
 
   
 It has been possible to confirm that impor ts of toilet paper to the Dominican Republic 
originate mainly in the following countries:  Costa Rica, El Salvador, Colombia, the United States of 
America, Trinidad and Tobago and Mainland China;  
 In accordance with Articles 64 and 65 of Law No. 1-02, once the Commission has decided to 
initiate an investigation procedure, it shall imme diately notify, through the Ministry of Foreign 
Affairs, governments the exports of which might be affected by the application of a safeguard 
measure, to enable them to begin making initial resp onses to the form that will be sent to them by the 
Commission, with a view to presenting any evidence or arguments they consider necessary in defence 
of their interests in the investigation; 
  Furthermore, Article 64 provides that the Commission shall notify the initiation of an investigation with a view to the application of safeguard measures to the WTO Committee on 
Safeguards; 
 
 Under Article 69 of Law No. 1-02, INDUSTRIAS NIGUA , in its capacity as the domestic 
industry of the product under investigation, shall subm it to the Commission, within thirty (30) days of 
the date of publication of the notice of initiation of the investigation, a plan for adjusting the domestic 
industry, which shall be duly justified and in  accordance with the objectives pursued through the 
application of the requested measure; 
 
HAVING REGARD to the Agreement on Safeguards;  
 HAVING REGARD to Law No. 1-02 on Unfair Trade Practices and Safeguard Measures of 
18 January 2002;  
 
HAVING REGARD to the Implementing Regulations for Law No. 1-02 on Unfair Trade Practices 
and Safeguard Measures;  HAVING REGARD to File No. CDC-RD/SG/2009-003; 
 
HAVING REGARD to preliminary technical report No. CDC-RD/SG/2009-003 prepared by the 
Investigations Department;  
AFTER DELIBERATING THE CASE, THE REGULATORY COMMISSION ON 
UNFAIR TRADE PRACTICES AND SAFEGUARD MEASURES 
 
HEREBY RESOLVES: 
 
ARTICLE 1:  TO INITIATE , at the request of the domestic industry, the investigation procedure 
with a view to the application of safeguard measu res to all imports of toilet paper identified under 
tariff subheading 4818.10.00, pursuant to the provisions of the main body of this Resolution. 
 
ARTICLE 2:  TO REQUIRE the manufacturers constituting the domestic industry for products that 
are like or directly competitive with the imported products to provide additional and supplementary 
information to enable this Commission to dete rmine, on the basis of objective and quantifiable 
evidence, that the increased imports and the conditi ons in which these are effected have caused or 
threaten to cause serious injury to the domestic i ndustry and that there is a causal link between these 
increased imports and the injury or threat of serious  injury, taking into cons ideration existing national 
and international statutory and regul atory provisions in this field. 
 G/SG/N/6/DOM/2 
Page 8  
 
  ARTICLE 3:  TO INFORM the interested parties of the tentat ive schedule of the investigation, 
namely:  
(a) The date of initiation of the investigati on (as of the publication of the notice in a 
national newspaper); 
 
(b) The deadline for other interested parties to  notify the Commission of their interest in 
participating in the investigation ( 15 days after the date of initiation); 
 
(c) The deadline for filing arguments concerni ng the possible application of a safeguard 
measure (30 days as from the date of initiation); 
 
(d) The deadline for holding the hearing (60 days before the final determination). 
 ARTICLE 4:  TO INFORM the interested parties, importers, users and other sectors involved in the 
procedure that they will have a period of thirty (30) days  as from the date of publication of the notice 
to submit testimonial and documentary eviden ce to the Commission for the purpose of presenting 
their cases.  ARTICLE 5:  TO IMMEDIATELY NOTIFY this Resolution and the initiation of an investigation 
with a view to the imposition of safeguard measures to: 
 
(a) Governments the exports of which could be  affected by the application of a safeguard 
measure, through the Ministry of Foreign Affairs;  and 
 
(b) The WTO Committee on Safeguards. 
 
ARTICLE 6:  TO AUTHORIZE the publication in a national ne wspaper and on the Commission 
website (www.cdc.gob.do)
 of the notice of initiation of an investigation with a view to the imposition 
of safeguard measures. 
A R T I C L E  7 :   T O  P R O V I D E  that any communication made in accordance with the relevant 
provisions shall indicate the name, domicile, addr ess, e-mail address and telephone and fax numbers 
of the sender, and be sent to the following address: 
 
Comisión Reguladora de Prácticas Desleal es en el Comercio y Medidas de Salvaguardias  
Calle Jesús de Manuel Troncoso Nº 18 
Ensanche Piantini 
Santo Domingo (República Dominicana) 
Tel.:  +1 (809) 476-0111 
 PARAGRAPH:  Interested parties shall submit to the Co mmission the forms for importers, exporters 
and the domestic industry, as appr opriate, as well as all other doc uments and declarations, in 
two (2) written versions, one confiden tial and one public, in one (1) original and two (2) copies, plus 
an electronic version.  The forms are available at the Commission's headquarters and on the website 
http://www.seic.gov.do.  The period for which eviden ce and relevant information concerning this 
investigation must be subm itted shall be from 2006 to 2008. 
 ARTICLE 8:  TO INFORM the applicant INDUSTRIAS NIGUA  that, within thirty (30) days of 
the date of publication of the notice of initiation of  the investigation, it will be required to submit to 
the Commission a plan for adjustin g the enterprise, which shall be  duly justified and in accordance 
with the objectives pursued through the application of the requested measure.   G/SG/N/6/DOM/2 
 Page 9 
 
 
   This Resolution has been approved and signed by the unanimity of the votes of the 
Regulatory Commission on Unfair Trade Practices and Safeguard Measures.  Done at Santo Domingo 
de Guzmán, National District, capital of the Dominican Republic, on this the ninth (9th) day of 
October of the year two thousand and nine (2009).  
 Signed: 
   
Maximina Santana Sánchez 
Chairperson 
 
Mario E. Pujols Ortíz 
Commissioner Hugo Ramírez Risk 
Commissioner 
 
Jean Alain Rodríguez 
Commissioner Iván Ernesto Gatón 
Commissioner 
  
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