Certain Quartz Surface Products From the People's Republic of China: Continuation of Antidumping and Countervailing Duty Orders

<NOTICE> DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE <SUBAGY>International Trade Administration</SUBAGY> <DEPDOC>[A-570-084, C-570-085]</DEPDOC> <SUBJECT>Certain Quartz Surface Products From the People's Republic of China: Continuation of Antidumping and Countervailing Duty Orders</SUBJECT> <HD SOURCE="HED">AGENCY:</HD> Enforcement and Compliance, International Trade Administration, Department of Commerce. <SUM> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUMMARY:</HD> As a result of the determinations by the U.S. Department of Commerce (Commerce) and the U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC) that revocation of the antidumping duty (AD) and countervailing duty (CVD) orders on certain quartz surface products (quartz surface products) from the People's Republic of China (China) would likely lead to the continuation or recurrence of dumping, countervailable subsidies, and material injury to an industry in the United States, Commerce is publishing a notice of continuation of the AD and CVD orders. </SUM> <DATES> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> Applicable January 24, 2025. </DATES> <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> Ajay K. Menon, AD/CVD Operations, Office IX, Enforcement and Compliance, International Trade Administration, U.S. Department of Commerce, 1401 Constitution Avenue NW, Washington, DC 20230; telephone: (202) 482-0208. </FURINF> <SUPLINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD1">Background</HD> On July 11, 2019, Commerce published in the <E T="04">Federal Register</E> the AD and CVD orders on quartz surface products from China. <SU>1</SU> <FTREF/> On June 3, 2024, the ITC instituted, <SU>2</SU> <FTREF/> and Commerce initiated, pursuant to section 751(c) of the Tariff Act of 1930, as amended (the Act). As a result of its reviews, Commerce determined that revocation of the <E T="03">Orders</E> would likely lead to the continuation or recurrence of dumping and countervailable subsidies, and therefore, notified the ITC of the magnitude of the margins of dumping and subsidy rates likely to prevail should the <E T="03">Orders</E> be revoked. <SU>4</SU> <FTREF/> <FTNT> <SU>1</SU>   <E T="03">See Certain Quartz Surface Products from the People's Republic of China: Antidumping and Countervailing Duty Orders,</E> 84 FR 33053 (July 11, 2019) ( <E T="03">Orders</E> ). </FTNT> <FTNT> <SU>2</SU>   <E T="03">See Quartz Surface Products from China; Institution of a Five-Year Review,</E> 89 FR 47614 (June 3, 2024). </FTNT> <FTNT> <SU>3</SU>   <E T="03">See Initiation of Five-Year (Sunset) Reviews,</E> 89 FR 47525 (June 3, 2024). </FTNT> <FTNT> <SU>4</SU>   <E T="03">See Certain Quartz Surface Products from the People's Republic of China: Final Results of the Expedited First Sunset Review of the Antidumping Duty Order,</E> 89 FR 80885 (October 4, 2024), and accompanying Issues and Decision Memorandum (IDM); and <E T="03">Certain Quartz Surface Products from the People's Republic of China: Final Results of the Expedited First Sunset Review of the Countervailing Duty Order,</E> 89 FR 81887 (October 9, 2024), and accompanying IDM. </FTNT> On January 24, 2025, the ITC published its determination, pursuant to sections 751(c) and 752(a) of the Act, that revocation of the <E T="03">Orders</E> would likely lead to continuation or recurrence of material injury to an industry in the United States within a reasonably foreseeable time. <SU>5</SU> <FTREF/> <FTNT> <SU>5</SU>   <E T="03">See Quartz Surface Products from China,</E> 90 FR 8140 (January 24, 2025) ( <E T="03">ITC Final Determination</E> ). </FTNT> <HD SOURCE="HD1">Scope of the Orders</HD> The scope of the <E T="03">Orders</E> covers certain quartz surface products. <SU>6</SU> <FTREF/> Quartz surface products consist of slabs and other surfaces created from a mixture of materials that includes predominately silica ( <E T="03">e.g.,</E> quartz, quartz powder, cristobalite) as well as a resin binder ( <E T="03">e.g.,</E> an unsaturated polyester). The incorporation of other materials, including, but not limited to, pigments, cement, or other additives does not remove the merchandise from the scope of the <E T="03">Orders.</E> However, the scope of the <E T="03">Orders</E> only includes products where the silica content is greater than any other single material, by actual weight. Quartz surface products are typically sold as rectangular slabs with a total surface area of approximately 45 to 60 square feet and a nominal thickness of one, two, or three centimeters. However, the scope of the <E T="03">Orders</E> includes surface products of all other sizes, thicknesses, and shapes. In addition to slabs, the scope of the <E T="03">Orders</E> includes, but is not limited to, other surfaces such as countertops, backsplashes, vanity tops, bar tops, work tops, tabletops, flooring, wall facing, shower surrounds, fire place surrounds, mantels, and tiles. Certain quartz surface products are covered by the <E T="03">Orders</E> whether polished or unpolished, cut or uncut, fabricated or not fabricated, cured or uncured, edged or not edged, thermoformed or not thermoformed, finished or unfinished, packaged or unpackaged, and regardless of the type of surface finish. <FTNT> <SU>6</SU>  Quartz surface products may also generally be referred to as engineered stone or quartz, artificial stone or quartz, agglomerated stone or quartz, synthetic stone or quartz, processed stone or quartz, manufactured stone or quartz, and Bretonstone®. </FTNT> In addition, quartz surface products are covered by the <E T="03">Orders</E> whether or not they are imported attached to, or in conjunction with, non-subject merchandise such as sinks, sink bowls, vanities, cabinets, and furniture. If quartz surface products are imported attached to, or in conjunction with, such non-subject merchandise, only the quartz surface product is covered by the scope. Subject merchandise includes material matching the above description that has been finished, packaged, or otherwise fabricated in a third country, including by cutting, polishing, curing, edging, thermoforming, attaching to, or packaging with another product, or any other finishing, packaging, or fabrication that would not otherwise remove the merchandise from the scope of the <E T="03">Orders</E> if performed in the country of manufacture of the quartz surface products. The scope of the <E T="03">Orders</E> does not cover quarried stone surface products, such as granite, marble, soapstone, or quartzite. Specifically excluded from the scope of the <E T="03">Orders</E> are crushed glass surface products. Crushed glass surface products must meet each of the following criteria to qualify for this exclusion: (1) The crushed glass content is greater than any other single material, by actual weight; (2) there are pieces of crushed glass visible across the surface of the product; (3) at least some of the individual pieces of crushed glass that are visible across the surface are larger than one centimeter wide as measured at their widest cross-section (glass pieces); and (4) the distance between any single glass piece and the closest separate glass piece does not exceed three inches. The products subject to the scope are currently classified in the Harmonized Tariff Schedule of the United States (HTSUS) under the following subheadings: 6810.99.0020, 6810.99.0040. Subject merchandise may also enter under subheadings 6810.11.0010, 6810.11.0070, 6810.19.1200, 6810.19.1400, 6810.19.5000, 6810.91.0000, 6810.99.0080, 6815.99.4070, 2506.10.0010, 2506.10.0050, 2506.20.0010, 2506.20.0080, and 7016.90.10. The HTSUS subheadings set forth above are provided for convenience and U.S. Customs purposes only. The written description of the scope of the <E T="03">Orders</E> is dispositive. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Continuation of the Orders</HD> As a result of the determinations by Commerce and the ITC that revocation of the <E T="03">Orders</E> would likely lead to continuation or recurrence of dumping, countervailable subsidies, and material injury to an industry in the United States, pursuant to section 751(d)(2) of the Act, Commerce hereby orders the continuation of the <E T="03">Orders.</E> U.S. Customs and Border Protection will continue to collect AD and CVD cash deposits at the rates in effect at the time of entry for all imports of subject merchandise. The effective date of the continuation of the <E T="03">Orders</E> is January 24, 2025. <SU>7</SU> <FTREF/> Pursuant to section 751(c)(2) of the Act and 19 CFR 351.218(c)(2), Commerce intends to initiate the next five-year reviews of the <E T="03">Orders</E> not later than 30 days prior to fifth anniversary of the date of the effective date of this continuation. <FTNT> <SU>7</SU>   <E T="03">See ITC Final Determination.</E> </FTNT> <HD SOURCE="HD1">Administrative Protective Order (APO)</HD> This notice also serves as a final reminder to parties subject to an APO of their responsibility concerning the return or destruction of proprietary information disclosed under APO in accordance with 19 CFR 351.305(a)(3), which continues to govern business proprietary information in this segment of the proceeding. Timely written notification of the return or destruction of APO materials, or conversion to judicial protective order, is hereby requested. Failure to comply with the regulations and terms of an APO is a violation which is subject to sanction. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Notification to Interested Parties</HD> These five-year (sunset) reviews and this notice are in accordance with sections 751(c) and 751(d)(2) of the Act and published in accordance with section 777(i) of the Act, and 19 CFR 351.218(f)(4). <SIG> <DATED>Dated: January 24, 2025.</DATED> <NAME>Abdelali Elouaradia,</NAME> Acting Assistant Secretary fo ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 10k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━