Hard Empty Capsules From the People's Republic of China: Final Affirmative Determination of Sales at Less Than Fair Value

<NOTICE> DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE <SUBAGY>International Trade Administration</SUBAGY> <DEPDOC>[A-570-184]</DEPDOC> <SUBJECT>Hard Empty Capsules From the People's Republic of China: Final Affirmative Determination of Sales at Less Than Fair Value</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) determines that hard empty capsules (capsules) from the People's Republic of China (China) are being, or are likely to be, sold in the United States at less than fair value (LTFV) for the period of investigation April 1, 2024, through September 30, 2024. </SUM> <DATES> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> Applicable December 29, 2025. </DATES> <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> Rebecca Janz or Jerry Xiao, AD/CVD Operations, Office II, Enforcement and Compliance, International Trade Administration, U.S. Department of Commerce, 1401 Constitution Avenue NW, Washington, DC 20230; telephone: (202) 482-2972 or (202) 482-2273, respectively. </FURINF> <SUPLINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD1">Background</HD> On May 29, 2025, Commerce published in the <E T="04">Federal Register</E> its preliminary affirmative determination in the LTFV investigation of capsules from China, in which it also postponed the final determination until October 14, 2025. <SU>1</SU> <FTREF/> On August 27, 2025, Commerce issued a post-preliminary analysis memorandum in which it made certain changes to its differential pricing analysis. <SU>2</SU> <FTREF/> We invited interested parties to comment on the <E T="03">Preliminary Determination</E> and changes to the differential pricing analysis. <SU>3</SU> <FTREF/> <FTNT> <SU>1</SU>   <E T="03">See Hard Empty Capsules from the People's Republic of China: Preliminary Affirmative Determination of Sales at Less Than Fair Value, Postponement of Final Determination, and Extension of Provisional Measures,</E> 90 FR 22704 (May 29, 2025) ( <E T="03">Preliminary Determination</E> ), and accompanying Preliminary Decision Memorandum. </FTNT> <FTNT> <SU>2</SU>   <E T="03">See</E> Memorandum, “Post-Preliminary Analysis for the Affirmative Determination in the Less-Than-Fair-Value Investigation of Hard Empty Capsules from the People's Republic of China,” dated August 27, 2025 (Post-Preliminary Analysis). </FTNT> <FTNT> <SU>3</SU>   <E T="03">See</E> Memorandum, “Briefing Schedule,” dated August 28, 2025. </FTNT> Due to the lapse in appropriations and Federal Government shutdown, on November 14, 2025, Commerce tolled all deadlines in administrative proceedings by 47 days. <SU>4</SU> <FTREF/> Additionally, due to a backlog of documents that were electronically filed via Enforcement and Compliance's Antidumping and Countervailing Duty Centralized Electronic Service System (ACCESS) during the Federal Government shutdown, on November 24, 2025, Commerce tolled all deadlines in administrative proceedings by an additional 21 days. <SU>5</SU> <FTREF/> Accordingly, the deadline for this final determination is now December 18, 2025. <FTNT> <SU>4</SU>   <E T="03">See</E> Memorandum, “Deadlines Affected by the Shutdown of the Federal Government,” dated November 14, 2025. </FTNT> <FTNT> <SU>5</SU>   <E T="03">See</E> Memorandum, “Tolling of all Case Deadlines,” dated November 24, 2025. </FTNT> A summary of the events that occurred since the <E T="03">Preliminary Determination,</E> as well as a full discussion of the issues raised by parties for this final determination, may be found in the Issues and Decision Memorandum. <SU>6</SU> <FTREF/> The Issues and Decision Memorandum is a public document and is on file electronically via ACCESS. ACCESS is available to registered users at <E T="03">https://access.trade.gov.</E> In addition, a complete version of the Issues and Decision Memorandum can be accessed directly at <E T="03">https://access.trade.gov/public/FRNoticesListLayout.aspx.</E> <FTNT> <SU>6</SU>   <E T="03">See</E> Memorandum, “Issues and Decision Memorandum for the Final Affirmative Determination of Sales at Less Than Fair Value in the Investigation of Hard Empty Capsules from the People's Republic of China,” dated concurrently with, and hereby adopted by, this notice (Issues and Decision Memorandum). </FTNT> <HD SOURCE="HD1">Scope of the Investigation</HD> The products covered by this investigation are capsules from China. For a complete description of the scope of this investigation, <E T="03">see</E> Appendix I. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Scope Comments</HD> In the Preliminary Scope Memorandum, we set aside a period of time for parties to raise issues regarding product coverage ( <E T="03">i.e.,</E> scope) in scope-specific case briefs or other written comments. <SU>7</SU> <FTREF/> We received scope case and rebuttal briefs from multiple interested parties. For a summary of the product coverage comments and rebuttal response submitted to the record for this final determination, and accompanying discussion and analysis of all comments timely received, <E T="03">see</E> the Final Scope Memorandum. <SU>8</SU> <FTREF/> In the Final Scope Memorandum, Commerce determined that it is modifying the scope language as it appeared in the <E T="03">Initiation Notice.</E> <SU>9</SU> <FTREF/> <E T="03">See</E> Appendix I. <FTNT> <SU>7</SU>   <E T="03">See</E> Memorandum, “Less-Than-Fair-Value and Countervailing Duty Investigations of Hard Empty Capsules from Brazil, the People's Republic of China, India, and the Socialist Republic of Vietnam: Scope Comments Decision Memorandum for the Preliminary Determination,” dated March 24, 2025 (Preliminary Scope Memorandum). </FTNT> <FTNT> <SU>8</SU>   <E T="03">See</E> Memorandum, “Less-Than-Fair-Value and Countervailing Duty Investigations of Hard Empty Capsules from Brazil, the People's Republic of China, India, and the Socialist Republic of Vietnam: Final Scope Decision Memorandum,” dated concurrently with this notice (Final Scope Memorandum). </FTNT> <FTNT> <SU>9</SU>   <E T="03">See Hard Empty Capsules from Brazil, the People's Republic of China, India, and the Socialist Republic of Vietnam: Initiation of Countervailing Duty Investigations,</E> 89 FR 91680 (November 20, 2024) ( <E T="03">Initiation Notice</E> ). </FTNT> <HD SOURCE="HD1">Verification</HD> Commerce conducted verification of the information relied upon in making its final determination in this investigation, in accordance with section 782(i) of the Tariff Act of 1930, as amended (the Act). Specifically, we conducted on-site verifications of the sales and cost information submitted by Shandong Healsee Capsule Ltd. (Shandong Healsee) and Shanxi JC Biological Technology Co., Ltd. (Shanxi JC) for use in our final determination. We used standard verification procedures, including an examination of relevant sales and accounting records, and original source documents provided by Shandong Healsee and Shanxi JC. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Analysis of Comments Received</HD> All issues raised in the case and rebuttal briefs submitted by interested parties in this investigation are addressed in the Issues and Decision Memorandum. A list of the issues addressed in the Issues and Decision Memorandum is attached to this notice as Appendix II. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Changes Since the Preliminary Determination</HD> We made certain changes to the margin calculations for Shandong Healsee and Shanxi JC since the <E T="03">Preliminary Determination</E> and Post-Preliminary Analysis. For a discussion of these changes, <E T="03">see</E> the Issues and Decision Memorandum. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Separate Rate Companies and the China-Wide Entity</HD> We preliminarily granted a separate rate to certain respondents that we did not select for individual examination. <SU>10</SU> <FTREF/> Additionally, because we preliminarily did not find that the China-wide entity failed to cooperate in this investigation, we preliminarily assigned this same rate as the estimate weighted-average dumping margin for the China-wide entity. <SU>11</SU> <FTREF/> No party commented on our preliminary separate rate determinations or our findings with respect to the China-wide entity. Therefore, we continue to find that Shandong Healsee, Shanxi JC, and certain non-individually examined companies that are listed in the “Final Determination” rate table below, are eligible for a separate rate. We also continue to assign the same rate assigned to the non-individually examined companies to the China-wide entity. <FTNT> <SU>10</SU>   <E T="03">See Preliminary Determination,</E> 90 FR at 22705. </FTNT> <FTNT> <SU>11</SU>   <E T="03">Id.</E> </FTNT> <HD SOURCE="HD1">Combination Rates</HD> Consistent with the <E T="03">Preliminary Determination</E> and Policy Bulletin 05.1, <SU>12</SU> <FTREF/> Commerce calculated combination rates for the companies eligible for a separate rate. <FTNT> <SU>12</SU>   <E T="03">See</E> Enforcement and Compliance's Policy Bulletin No. 05.1, regarding, “Separate-Rates Practice and Application of Combination Rates in Antidumping Investigations involving Non-Market Economy Countries,” dated April 5, 2005 (Policy Bulletin 05.1), available on Commerce's website at <E T="03">http://enforcement.trade.gov/policy/bull05-1.pdf.</E> </FTNT> <HD SOURCE="HD1">Final Determination</HD> Commerce determines that the following estimated weighted-average dumping margins exist: <FTREF/> <FTNT> <SU>13</SU>  To determine the cash deposit rate, Commerce normally adjusts the estimated weighted-average dumping margin by the amount of export subsidies countervailed in a companion countervailing duty (CVD) proceeding, when ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 26k characters. 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