Citric Acid and Certain Citrate Salts From Thailand: Preliminary Results of Antidumping Duty Administrative Review; 2022-2023

<NOTICE> DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE <SUBAGY>International Trade Administration</SUBAGY> <DEPDOC>[A-549-833]</DEPDOC> <SUBJECT>Citric Acid and Certain Citrate Salts From Thailand: Preliminary Results of Antidumping Duty Administrative Review; 2022-2023</SUBJECT> <HD SOURCE="HED">AGENCY:</HD> Enforcement and Compliance, International Trade Administration, Department of Commerce. <SUM> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUMMARY:</HD> The U.S. Department of Commerce (Commerce) preliminarily determines that certain producers/ exporters subject to this administrative review did not make sales of subject merchandise at less than normal value (NV) during the July 1, 2022, through June 30, 2023, period of review (POR). Interested parties are invited to comment on these preliminary results. </SUM> <DATES> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> Applicable August 1, 2024. </DATES> <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> Joy Zhang or Matthew Palmer, AD/CVD Operations, Office III, Enforcement and Compliance, International Trade Administration, U.S. Department of Commerce, 1401 Constitution Avenue NW, Washington, DC 20230; telephone: (202) 482-1168 or (202) 482-1678, respectively. </FURINF> <SUPLINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD1">Background</HD> On July 25, 2018, Commerce published in the <E T="04">Federal Register</E> the antidumping duty order on citric acid from Thailand. <SU>1</SU> <FTREF/> On July 3, 2023, Commerce published in the <E T="04">Federal Register</E> a notice of opportunity to request an administrative review of the <E T="03">Order.</E> <SU>2</SU> <FTREF/> On September 11, 2023, based on timely requests for review, in accordance with section 751(a)(1) of the Tariff Act of 1930, as amended (the Act), and 19 CFR 351.221(c)(1)(i), Commerce initiated an administrative review of the <E T="03">Order</E> covering three companies. <SU>3</SU> <FTREF/> Pursuant to section 751(a)(3)(A) of the Act, Commerce extended the deadline for the preliminary results until July 30, 2024. <SU>4</SU> <FTREF/> On July 22, 2024, Commerce tolled certain deadlines in this administrative proceeding by seven days. <SU>5</SU> <FTREF/> The deadline for the preliminary results of this administrative review is now August 6, 2024. For a complete description of the events that followed the initiation of this review, <E T="03">see</E> the Preliminary Decision Memorandum. <SU>6</SU> <FTREF/> <FTNT> <SU>1</SU>   <E T="03">See Citric Acid and Certain Citrate Salts from Belgium, Colombia and Thailand: Antidumping Duty Orders,</E> 83 FR 35214 (July 25, 2018) ( <E T="03">Order</E> ). </FTNT> <FTNT> <SU>2</SU>   <E T="03">See Antidumping or Countervailing Duty Order, Finding, or Suspended Investigation; Opportunity to Request Administrative Review and Join Annual Inquiry Service List,</E> 88 FR 42693 (July 3, 2023). </FTNT> <FTNT> <SU>3</SU>   <E T="03">See Initiation of Antidumping and Countervailing Duty Administrative Reviews,</E> 88 FR 62322 (September 11, 2023). </FTNT> <FTNT> <SU>4</SU>   <E T="03">See</E> Memorandum, “Extension of Deadline for Preliminary Results of Antidumping Duty Administrative Review,” dated March 1, 2024. </FTNT> <FTNT> <SU>5</SU>   <E T="03">See</E> Memorandum, “Tolling of Deadlines for Antidumping and Countervailing Duty Proceedings,” dated July 22, 2024. </FTNT> <FTNT> <SU>6</SU>   <E T="03">See</E> Memorandum, “Decision Memorandum for Preliminary Results of Antidumping Duty Administrative Review: Citric Acid and Certain Citrate Salts from Thailand; 2022-2023,” dated concurrently with, and hereby adopted by, this notice (Preliminary Decision Memorandum). </FTNT> <HD SOURCE="HD1">Scope of the Order</HD> The merchandise covered by this <E T="03">Order</E> is citric acid from Thailand. For a full description of the scope of the <E T="03">Order, see</E> the Preliminary Decision Memorandum. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Methodology</HD> Commerce is conducting this review in accordance with section 751(a) of the Act. Export price and constructed export price are calculated in accordance with section 772 of the Act. NV is calculated in accordance with section 773 of the Act. For a full description of the methodology underlying our conclusions, <E T="03">see</E> the Preliminary Decision Memorandum. The Preliminary Decision Memorandum is a public document and is on file electronically via Enforcement and Compliance's Antidumping and Countervailing Duty Centralized Electronic Service System (ACCESS). ACCESS is available to registered users at <E T="03">https://access.trade.gov.</E> In addition, a complete version of the Preliminary Decision Memorandum can be accessed directly at <E T="03">https://access.trade.gov/public/FRNoticesListLayout.aspx.</E> A list of the topics discussed in the Preliminary Decision Memorandum is attached as an appendix to this notice. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Rate for Non-Selected Companies</HD> The Act and Commerce's regulations do not directly address the establishment of a rate to be applied to individual companies not selected for examination when Commerce limits its examination in an administrative review pursuant to section 777A(c)(2) of the Act. Generally, Commerce looks to section 735(c)(5) of the Act, which provides instructions for calculating the all-others rate in a market economy investigation, for guidance when calculating the rate for companies which were not selected for individual review in an administrative review. Under section 735(c)(5)(A) of the Act, the all-others rate is normally “an amount equal to the weighted average of the estimated weighted-average dumping margins established for exporters and producers individually investigated, excluding any zero or <E T="03">de minimis</E> margins, and any margins determined entirely {on the basis of facts available}.” In this administrative review, we preliminarily calculated dumping margins of zero percent for both COFCO Biochemical (Thailand) Co., Ltd. (COFCO) and Sunshine Biotech International Co., Ltd. (Sunshine). Thus, in accordance with the expected method, and consistent with the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit's decision in <E T="03">Albemarle,</E> <SU>7</SU> <FTREF/> we preliminarily assigned to the non-selected company a zero percent rate, based on the rates calculated for the two mandatory respondents. <FTNT> <SU>7</SU>  S <E T="03">ee Albemarle Corp.</E> v. <E T="03">United States,</E> 821 F.3d 1345, 1352 (Fed. Cir. 2016) ( <E T="03">Albemarle</E> ) (holding that Commerce may only use “other reasonable methods” if it reasonably concludes that the expected method is “not feasible” or “would not be reasonably reflective of potential dumping margins”). </FTNT> <HD SOURCE="HD1">Preliminary Results of the Review</HD> As a result of this review, we preliminarily determine the following weighted-average dumping margins exist for the period July 1, 2022, through June 30, 2023: <GPOTABLE COLS="2" OPTS="L2,tp0,i1" CDEF="s100,9"> <TTITLE> </TTITLE> <CHED H="1">Producer/exporter</CHED> <ENT I="01">COFCO Biochemical (Thailand) Co., Ltd</ENT> <ENT>0.00</ENT> </ROW> <ROW> <ENT I="01">Sunshine Biotech International Co., Ltd</ENT> <ENT>0.00</ENT> </ROW> <ROW> <ENT I="01">Xitrical Group Co. LTD</ENT> <ENT>0.00</ENT> </ROW> </GPOTABLE> <HD SOURCE="HD1">Disclosure and Public Comment</HD> Commerce intends to disclose to interested parties the calculations performed for these preliminary results within five days of the date of publication of this notice. <SU>8</SU> <FTREF/> Pursuant to 19 CFR 351.309(c), interested parties may submit case briefs to Commerce no later than 30 days after the date of publication of this notice. Rebuttal briefs, limited to issues raised in the case briefs, may be filed not later than five days after the date for filing case briefs. <SU>9</SU> <FTREF/> Interested parties who submit case or rebuttal briefs in this proceeding must submit: (1) a table of contents listing each issue; and (2) a table of authorities. <SU>10</SU> <FTREF/> <FTNT> <SU>8</SU>   <E T="03">See</E> 19 CFR 351.224(b). </FTNT> <FTNT> <SU>9</SU>   <E T="03">See</E> 19 CFR 351.309(d). </FTNT> <FTNT> <SU>10</SU>   <E T="03">See</E> 19 351.309(c)(2) and (d)(2). </FTNT> As provided under 19 CFR 351.309(c)(2) and (d)(2), in prior proceedings we have encouraged interested parties to provide an executive summary of their brief that should be limited to five pages total, including footnotes. In this review, we instead request that interested parties provide at the beginning of their briefs a public, executive summary for each issue raised in their briefs. <SU>11</SU> <FTREF/> Further, we request that interested parties limit their public executive summary of each issue to no more than 450 words, not including citations. We intend to use the public executive summaries as the basis of the comment summaries included in the issues and decision memorandum that will accompany the final results in this administrative review. We request that interested parties include footnotes for relevant citations in the public executive summary of each issue. Note that Commerce has amended certain of its requirements pertaining to the service of documents in 19 CFR 351.303(f). <SU>12</SU> <FTREF/> <FTNT> <SU>11</SU>  We use the term “issue” here to describe an argument that Commerce would normally address in a comment of the Issues and Decision Memorandum. </FTNT> <FTNT> <SU>12</SU>   <E T="03">See Administrative Protective Order, Service, and Other Procedures in Antidumping and Countervailing Duty Proceedings; Final Rule,</E> 88 FR 67069 (September 29, 2023). </FTNT> Interested parties who wish to request a hearing must submit a written request to the Assistant Secretary ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 18k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━