Food processor SPC Ardmona has welcomed the announcement from the Australian Government that its new Anti-Dumping Commission has initiated investigations into peaches being imported from South Africa and tomatoes imported from Italy.

The new Anti-Dumping Commission was the primary recommendation of a review into Australia’s anti-dumping system led by John Brumby, the former Premier of Victoria.

“This news validates the hard work we have undertaken over the last few months on our plans to revitalise our company,” said Peter Kelly, Managing Director SPC Ardmona.

“We are determined to fight for our business in the Goulburn Valley and the future of Australian food processing,” said Mr Kelly. “We believe we have a very clear case for Anti-Dumping measure and it’s encouraging that the Government has deemed there to be enough evidence to warrant a formal investigation,” he said.

Australian Food News reported in June 2013 that a request from SPC Ardmona for an investigation into the impact of imports of processed fruit and tomatoes was being referred to the Australian Productivity Commission.

New Anti-Dumping Commission details

The Government says the new Anti-Dumping Commission, which will be based in Melbourne and employ around 25 new people, will double the number of investigators working on anti-dumping cases. An additional $24.4 million has been allocated to the administration of Australia’s anti-dumping system.

Dale Seymour, who has held a range of public sector and business roles including Deputy Secretary of a Victorian Government department, has been announced as the Anti-Dumping Commissioner. Mr Seymour’s most recent roles were as a Director of policy advise company Deloitte Access Economics and President of US-based ‘clean coal’ company Wormser Energy.

The Government said that over the last two years it has developed six tranches of legislative reform to Australia’s anti-dumping system. These reforms include:

• Imposing a time limit on ministerial decision making in anti-dumping and countervailing cases
• Establishing a new appeal process for anti-dumping matters
• Establishing the International Trade Remedies Forum in legislation
• Removing the need for a separate review of anti-dumping measures and continuation inquiries to be run in close proximity to each other
• Allowing different forms of interim dumping duty to be applied from those currently used
• Removing the current limitation to the inclusion of profit when calculating the ‘normal value’ of a good in its country of origin, in certain circumstances
• Strengthening the provisions that deal with non-cooperation in sampling exercises in investigations, continuation inquiries and reviews
• Allowing Australian industries, or the Minister, to bring about an anti-circumvention inquiry
• Removing, in certain circumstances, the need for the Minister to consider the lesser duty rule
• Clarifying the application of existing retrospective duties provisions
• Introducing a new type of anti-circumvention inquiry to address ‘sales at a loss’ cases

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