Thermoformed Molded Fiber Products From the People's Republic of China and the Socialist Republic of Vietnam: Initiation of Less-Than-Fair-Value Investigations

<NOTICE> DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE <SUBAGY>International Trade Administration</SUBAGY> <DEPDOC>[A-570-182, A-552-845]</DEPDOC> <SUBJECT>Thermoformed Molded Fiber Products From the People's Republic of China and the Socialist Republic of Vietnam: Initiation of Less-Than-Fair-Value Investigations</SUBJECT> <HD SOURCE="HED">AGENCY:</HD> Enforcement and Compliance, International Trade Administration, Department of Commerce. <DATES> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> Applicable October 28, 2024. </DATES> <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> Rebecca Trainor or Dennis McClure at (202) 482-4007 or (202) 482-5973, respectively (the People's Republic of China (China)) and Thomas Martin at (202) 482-3936 (the Socialist Republic of Vietnam (Vietnam)), AD/CVD Operations, Enforcement and Compliance, International Trade Administration, U.S. Department of Commerce, 1401 Constitution Avenue NW, Washington, DC 20230. </FURINF> <SUPLINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD1">The Petitions</HD> On October 8, 2024, the U.S. Department of Commerce (Commerce) received antidumping duty (AD) petitions concerning imports of thermoformed molded fiber products (molded fiber products) from China and Vietnam filed in proper form on behalf of Genera, Tellus Products, LLC, and the United Steel, Paper and Forestry, Rubber, Manufacturing, Energy, Allied Industrial and Service Workers International Union, AFL-CIO (the USW), collectively, the American Molded Fiber Products Coalition (the petitioners), domestic producers of molded fiber products and a certified union, which represents workers engaged in the production of molded fiber products in the United States. <SU>1</SU> <FTREF/> The AD Petitions were accompanied by countervailing duty (CVD) petitions concerning imports of molded fiber products from China and Vietnam. <SU>2</SU> <FTREF/> <FTNT> <SU>1</SU>   <E T="03">See</E> Petitioners' Letter, “Petitions for the Imposition of Antidumping and Countervailing Duties,” dated October 8, 2024 (Petitions). </FTNT> <FTNT> <SU>2</SU>   <E T="03">Id.</E> </FTNT> Between October 11 and 22, 2024, Commerce requested supplemental information pertaining to certain aspects of the Petitions in supplemental questionnaires. <SU>3</SU> <FTREF/> The petitioners responded to Commerce's supplemental questionnaires between October 16 and 24, 2024. <SU>4</SU> <FTREF/> <FTNT> <SU>3</SU>   <E T="03">See</E> Commerce's Letters, “Supplemental Questions,” dated October 11, 2024 (First General Issues Questionnaire); <E T="03">see also</E> Country-Specific AD Supplemental Questionnaires: China Supplemental and Vietnam Supplemental, dated October 11, 2024; and Memorandum, “Phone Call,” dated October 22, 2024 (October 22, 2024, Memorandum). </FTNT> <FTNT> <SU>4</SU>   <E T="03">See</E> Petitioners' Letters, “Responses to Antidumping and Countervailing Duty Petition Supplemental Questionnaire,” dated October 16, 2024 (First General Issues Supplement); <E T="03">see also</E> Country-Specific AD Supplemental Responses: China AD Supplement and Vietnam AD Supplement, dated October 16, 2024; and Petitioners' Letter, “Responses to Second Supplemental Questionnaire,” dated October 24, 2024 (Second General Issues Supplement). </FTNT> In accordance with section 732(b) of the Tariff Act of 1930, as amended (the Act), the petitioners allege that imports of molded fiber products from China and Vietnam are being, or are likely to be, sold in the United States at less than fair value (LTFV) within the meaning of section 731 of the Act, and that imports of such products are materially injuring, or threatening material injury to, the molded fiber products industry in the United States. Consistent with section 732(b)(1) of the Act, the Petitions were accompanied by information reasonably available to the petitioners supporting their allegations. Commerce finds that the petitioners filed the Petitions on behalf of the domestic industry, because the petitioners are interested parties, as defined in sections 771(9)(C) and (D) of the Act. <SU>5</SU> <FTREF/> Commerce also finds that the petitioners demonstrated sufficient industry support for the initiation of the requested LTFV investigations. <SU>6</SU> <FTREF/> <FTNT> <SU>5</SU>  Genera and Tellus Products, LLC are interested parties under section 771(9)(C) of the Act, while the USW is an interested party under section 771(9)(D) of the Act. </FTNT> <FTNT> <SU>6</SU>   <E T="03">See</E> section on “Determination of Industry Support for the Petitions,” <E T="03">infra.</E> </FTNT> <HD SOURCE="HD1">Periods of Investigation</HD> Because the Petitions were filed on October 8, 2024, and because China and Vietnam are non-market economy (NME) countries, pursuant to 19 CFR 351.204(b)(1), the periods of investigation (POI) for the China and Vietnam LTFV investigations are April 1, 2024, through September 30, 2024. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Scope of the Investigations</HD> The products covered by these investigations are molded fiber products from China and Vietnam. For a full description of the scope of these investigations, <E T="03">see</E> the appendix to this notice. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Comments on the Scope of the Investigations</HD> On October 11 and 22, 2024, Commerce requested information and clarification from the petitioners regarding the proposed scope to ensure that the scope language in the Petitions is an accurate reflection of the products for which the domestic industry is seeking relief. <SU>7</SU> <FTREF/> On October 16 and 24, 2024, the petitioners provided clarifications and revised the scope. <SU>8</SU> <FTREF/> The description of merchandise covered by these investigations, as described in the appendix to this notice, reflects these clarifications. <FTNT> <SU>7</SU>   <E T="03">See</E> First General Issues Questionnaire; <E T="03">see also</E> October 22, 2024, Memorandum. </FTNT> <FTNT> <SU>8</SU>   <E T="03">See</E> First General Issues Supplement at 2-4; <E T="03">see also</E> Second General Issues Supplement at 1-4. </FTNT> As discussed in the <E T="03">Preamble</E> to Commerce's regulations, we are setting aside a period for interested parties to raise issues regarding product coverage ( <E T="03">i.e.,</E> scope). <SU>9</SU> <FTREF/> Commerce will consider all scope comments received from interested parties and, if necessary, will consult with interested parties prior to the issuance of the preliminary determinations. If scope comments include factual information, <SU>10</SU> <FTREF/> all such factual information should be limited to public information. To facilitate preparation of its questionnaires, Commerce requests that scope comments be submitted by 5:00 p.m. Eastern Time (ET) on November 18, 2024, which is the next business day after 20 calendar days from the signature date of this notice. <SU>11</SU> <FTREF/> Any rebuttal comments, which may include factual information, and should also be limited to public information, must be filed by 5:00 p.m. ET on November 29, 2024, which is the next business day after 10 calendar days from the initial comment deadline. <SU>12</SU> <FTREF/> <FTNT> <SU>9</SU>   <E T="03">See Antidumping Duties; Countervailing Duties, Final Rule,</E> 62 FR 27296, 27323 (May 19, 1997) ( <E T="03">Preamble</E> ); <E T="03">see also</E> 19 CFR 351.312. </FTNT> <FTNT> <SU>10</SU>   <E T="03">See</E> 19 CFR 351.102(b)(21) (defining “factual information”). </FTNT> <FTNT> <SU>11</SU>   <E T="03">See</E> 19 CFR 351.303(b)(1). The deadline for scope comments falls on November 17, 2024, which is a Sunday. In accordance with 19 CFR 351.303(b)(1), Commerce will accept comments filed by 5:00 p.m. ET on November 18, 2024 (“For both electronically filed and manually filed documents, if the applicable due date falls on a non-business day, the Secretary will accept documents that are filed on the next business day.”). </FTNT> <FTNT> <SU>12</SU>   <E T="03">See</E> 19 CFR 351.303(b)(1). The deadline for rebuttal scope comments falls on November 28, 2024, which is a Federal holiday. In accordance with 19 CFR 351.303(b)(1), Commerce will accept comments filed by 5:00 p.m. ET on November 29, 2024 (“For both electronically filed and manually filed documents, if the applicable due date falls on a non-business day, the Secretary will accept documents that are filed on the next business day.”). </FTNT> Commerce requests that any factual information that parties consider relevant to the scope of these investigations be submitted during that period. However, if a party subsequently finds that additional factual information pertaining to the scope of the investigations may be relevant, the party must contact Commerce and request permission to submit the additional information. All scope comments must be filed simultaneously on the records of the concurrent LTFV and CVD investigations. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Filing Requirements</HD> All submissions to Commerce must be filed electronically via Enforcement and Compliance's Antidumping Duty and Countervailing Duty Centralized Electronic Service System (ACCESS), unless an exception applies. <SU>13</SU> <FTREF/> An electronically filed document must be received successfully in its entirety by the time and date it is due. <FTNT> <SU>13</SU>   <E T="03">See Antidumping and Countervailing Duty Proceedings: Electronic Filing Procedures; Administrative Protective Order Procedures,</E> 76 FR 39263 (July 6, 2011); <E T="03">see also Enforcement and Compliance: Change of Electronic Filing System Name,</E> 79 FR 69046 (November 20, 2014) for details of Commerce's electronic filing requirements, effective August 5, 2011. Information on using ACCESS can be found at <E T="03">https://access.trade. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 47k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━