[Federal Register Volume 61, Number 88 (Monday, May 6, 1996)]
[Notices]
[Pages 20231-20233]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 96-11245]



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DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE
[A-538-802]


Shop Towels From Bangladesh; Preliminary Results of Antidumping 
Duty Administrative Review.

AGENCY: Import Administration, International Trade Administration, 
Department of Commerce.

ACTION: Notice of Preliminary Results of Antidumping Duty 
Administrative Review.

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SUMMARY: In response to a request from the petitioner, Milliken & 
Company, the Department of Commerce is conducting an administrative 
review of the antidumping duty order on shop towels from Bangladesh. 
The review period is March 1, 1994, through February 28, 1995. This 
review covers six manufacturers/exporters. The preliminary results of 
this review indicate the existence of dumping margins for several 
manufacturers/exporters during the period.
    Interested parties are invited to comment on these preliminary 
results. Parties who submit arguments are requested to submit with each 
argument (1) a statement of the issue and (2) a brief summary of the 
argument.

EFFECTIVE DATE: May 6, 1996.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Davina Hashmi or Michael Rill, Office 
of Antidumping Compliance, Import Administration, International Trade 
Administration, U.S. Department of Commerce, 14th Street and 
Constitution Avenue, Washington, D.C. 20230; telephone (202) 482-4733.

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:

Applicable Statute

    Unless otherwise indicated, all citations to the statute are 
references to the provisions effective January 1, 1995, the effective 
date of the amendments made to the Tariff Act of 1930 (the Act) by the 
Uruguay Round Agreements Act (URAA).

Background

    On March 7, 1995, the Department of Commerce (the Department) 
published a notice of ``Opportunity to Request an Administrative 
Review'' (60 FR 12540) of the antidumping duty order on shop towels 
from Bangladesh (57 FR 9688, March 20, 1992) for the period March 1, 
1994, through February 28, 1995. On March 27, 1995, the petitioner, 
Milliken & Company (Milliken), requested an administrative review of 
six manufacturers/exporters: Eagle Star Mills, Ltd. (Eagle Star); 
Greyfab (Bangladesh) Ltd. (Greyfab); Hashem International (Hashem); 
Khaled Textile Mills Ltd. (Khaled); Shabnam Textiles

[[Page 20232]]

(Shabnam); and Sonar Cotton Mills (Bangladesh) Ltd. (Sonar). We 
published a notice of initiation of the review on April 14, 1995 (60 FR 
19017). The Department is now conducting a review of these respondents 
pursuant to section 751 of the Act.

Scope of the Review

    The product covered by this administrative review is shop towels. 
Shop towels are absorbent industrial wiping cloths made from a loosely 
woven fabric. The fabric may be either 100 percent cotton or a blend of 
materials. Shop towels are currently classifiable under item number 
6307.10.2005 and 6307.10.2015 of the Harmonized Tariff Schedules (HTS). 
Although HTS subheadings are provided for convenience and customs 
purposes, our written description of the scope of this proceeding 
remains dispositive.
    This review covers six manufacturers/exporters. The period of 
review (POR) is March 1, 1994, through February 28, 1995.

Export Price

    The Department used export price (EP), as defined in section 772(a) 
of the Act, for Greyfab, Hashem, Khaled, Shabnam, and Sonar because the 
subject merchandise was sold by the manufacturer, prior to importation, 
to unaffiliated purchasers in the United States and the constructed 
export price was not otherwise warranted based on the facts of record. 
For each of the companies, we calculated EP based on packed C&F, CIF, 
or FOB prices. We made deductions, where appropriate, for forwarding 
charges, insurance expenses, and ocean freight in accordance with 
section 772(c)(2) of the Act.

Normal Value

    In accordance with section 773(a)(4) of the Act, we used 
constructed value (CV) as normal value (NV) for all U.S. sales, because 
none of the respondents sold the foreign like product in the home 
market or in any third-country market during the POR. We calculated CV, 
in accordance with section 773(e) of the Act, as the sum of the cost of 
manufacturing (COM) of the product sold in the United States, general 
and administrative (SG&A) expenses, and U.S. packing expenses. The COM 
of the product sold in the United States is the sum of direct material, 
direct labor, and variable and fixed factory overhead expenses. For 
SG&A expenses and profit, we used an alternative method under section 
773(e)(2)(B)(iii) of the Act, because we had no information that would 
permit us to use any of the other alternatives under section 773(e)(2). 
We could not calculate the ``profit cap'' prescribed by section 
773(e)(2)(B)(iii) based on sales for consumption in the ``foreign 
country'' of merchandise that is in the same general category of 
products as the subject merchandise because we had no such information. 
Instead, we applied 773(e)(2)(B)(iii) on the basis of the facts 
available (section 776(b) of the Act). For each of the five responding 
companies, the only facts available for these preliminary results were 
the amounts for SG&A and profit incurred and realized by the respondent 
as shown in the company's financial statements.
    In accordance with sections 773(a)(6)(C)(iii) and 773(a)(8) of the 
Act, we made a circumstance-of-sale (COS) adjustment for Khaled for 
sales commissions by deducting commissions that were included in the 
SG&A expenses and adding U.S. commissions to CV. In addition, we made a 
COS adjustment for Greyfab, Hashem, and Shabnam for inspection fees by 
deducting these fees that were included in the SG&A expenses and adding 
U.S. inspection fees to CV. We made no other adjustments.

Facts Available

    We preliminarily determine, in accordance with section 776(a) of 
the Act, that the use of facts available is appropriate for Eagle Star 
because it did not respond to the Department's antidumping 
questionnaire. We sent Eagle Star a questionnaire on June 23, 1995, 
with a deadline of September 22, 1995, for Sections A-D of the 
Department's questionnaire. We did not receive a response to any 
section of the Department's questionnaire. We find that Eagle Star has 
withheld ``information that has been requested by the administering 
authority.'' Therefore, we must make our preliminary determination 
based on facts otherwise available pursuant to section 776(a)(2) of the 
Act.
    Moreover, we find that Eagle Star has not acted to ``the best of 
its ability'' to comply with our requests for information. Section 
776(b) authorizes the Department in such situations to use an inference 
adverse to the interests of the non-cooperating party in choosing the 
facts available. Section 776(b) authorizes the Department to use as 
adverse facts available information derived from the petition, the 
final determination, a previous administrative review, or other 
information placed on the record. Because information from prior 
segments of the proceeding constitutes secondary information, section 
776(c) provides that the Department shall, to the extent practicable, 
corroborate that secondary information from independent sources 
reasonably at its disposal. The Statement of Administrative Action 
(SAA) provides that ``corroborate'' means simply that the Department 
will satisfy itself that the secondary information to be used has 
probative value.
    To corroborate secondary information, the Department will, to the 
extent practicable, examine the reliability and relevance of the 
information to be used. However, unlike other types of information, 
such as input costs or selling expenses, there are no independent 
sources for calculated dumping margins. The only source for margins is 
administrative determinations. Thus, in an administrative review, if 
the Department chooses as total adverse facts available a calculated 
dumping margin from a prior segment of the proceeding, it is not 
necessary to question the reliability of the margin for that time 
period. With respect to the relevance aspect of corroboration, however, 
the Department will consider information reasonably at its disposal as 
to whether there are circumstances that would render a margin not 
relevant. Where circumstances indicate that the selected margin is not 
appropriate as adverse facts available, the Department will disregard 
the margin and determine an appropriate margin (see, e.g., Fresh Cut 
Flowers from Mexico; Final Results of Antidumping Duty Administrative 
Review (61 FR 6812, February 22, 1996), where the Department 
disregarded the highest margin in that case as adverse facts available 
because the margin was based on another company's uncharacteristic 
business expense resulting in an unusually high margin).
    In this case, we have used the highest rate from any prior segment 
of the proceeding, 42.31 percent, as adverse facts available. This rate 
is the highest available rate and, to the best of our knowledge, there 
are no circumstances that indicate that the selected margin is not 
appropriate as facts available.
    During this review, we requested additional information in 
supplemental questionnaires from the five companies that responded to 
the Department's original questionnaire. Respondents requested 
extensions of the due dates, which we granted, but the due dates fell 
just before the statutory due date for these preliminary results, and 
we could not incorporate the supplemental information into our 
calculations. We therefore resorted to using facts available for the 
purpose of calculating

[[Page 20233]]

certain adjustments to EP. We also used facts available for certain 
expenses in the calculation of CV. However, we intend to take into 
consideration timely responses to our requests for additional 
information for the final results. Please refer to the respective 
analysis memoranda for a detailed explanation of the facts available 
used for the purpose of calculating dumping margins for each 
respondent.

Preliminary Results of Review

    We preliminarily determine that the following dumping margins 
exist:

------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                                                 Margin 
           Manufacturer/exporter               Time period     (percent)
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Eagle Star Textile Mills, Ltd.............     3/1/94-2/28/95      42.31
Greyfab (Bangladesh), Ltd.................     3/1/94-2/28/95       0.01
Hashem International......................     3/1/94-2/28/95       0.02
Khaled Textile Mills, Ltd.................     3/1/94-2/28/95       0.01
Shabnam Textiles..........................     3/1/94-2/28/95       0.03
Sonar Cotton (BD), Ltd....................     3/1/94-2/28/95       0.00
------------------------------------------------------------------------

    Parties to the proceeding may request disclosure within 5 days of 
the date of publication of this notice. Any interested party may 
request a hearing within 10 days of publication. Any hearing, if 
requested, will be held 44 days after the publication of this notice, 
or the first workday thereafter. Interested parties may submit case 
briefs within 30 days of the date of publication of this notice. 
Parties who submit argument in this proceeding are requested to submit 
with each argument (1) a statement of the issue and (2) a brief summary 
of the argument. Rebuttal briefs, which must be limited to issues 
raised in the case briefs, may be filed not later than 37 days after 
the date of publication. The Department will publish a notice of final 
results of this administrative review, which will include the results 
of its analysis of issues raised in any such comments within 180 days 
of issuance of these preliminary results.
    The Department shall determine, and the Customs Service shall 
assess, antidumping duties on all appropriate entries. The Department 
will issue appraisement instructions directly to the Customs Service. 
The final results of this review shall be the basis for the assessment 
of antidumping duties on entries of merchandise covered by the 
determination and for future deposits of estimated duties. For duty 
assessment purposes, we calculated an importer-specific assessment rate 
by aggregating the dumping margins calculated for all U.S. sales to 
each importer and dividing this amount by the total quantity of subject 
merchandise sold to each of the respective importers. This specific 
rate calculated for each importer will be used for the assessment of 
antidumping duties on the relevant entries of subject merchandise 
during the POR.
    Furthermore, the following deposit rates will be effective upon 
publication of the final results of these administrative reviews for 
all shipments of shop towels from Bangladesh entered, or withdrawn from 
warehouse, for consumption on or after the publication date, as 
provided for by section 751(a)(2)(C) of the Act: (1) The cash deposit 
rates for reviewed companies will be the rates established in the final 
results of this review; (2) for previously reviewed or investigated 
companies not listed above, the cash deposit rate will continue to be 
the company-specific rate published for the most recent period; (3) if 
the exporter is not a firm covered in this review, a prior review or 
the original less-than-fair-value investigation, but the manufacturer 
is, the cash deposit rate will be the rate established for the most 
recent period for the manufacturer of the merchandise; and (4) for all 
other producers and/or exporters of this merchandise, the cash deposit 
rate shall be the rate established in the investigation of sales at 
less than fair value, which is 4.60 percent.
    These deposit rates, when imposed, shall remain in effect until 
publication of the final results of the next administrative review.
    This notice also serves as a preliminary reminder to importers of 
their responsibility under 19 CFR 353.26 to file a certificate 
regarding the reimbursement of antidumping duties prior to liquidation 
of the relevant entries during this review period. Failure to comply 
with this requirement could result in the Secretary's presumption that 
reimbursement of antidumping duties occurred and the subsequent 
assessment of double antidumping duties.
    This administrative review and notice are in accordance with 
section 751(a)(1) of the Act (19 U.S.C. 1675(a)(1)) and 19 CFR 353.22.

    Dated: April 26, 1996.
Susan G. Esserman,
Assistant Secretary for Import Administration.
[FR Doc. 96-11245 Filed 5-3-96; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 3510-DS-P