Duties Approved For Calcium Hypochlorite

The U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC) gave the green light to customs authorities to begin collecting duties on imports of calcium hypochlorite from China after determining the shipments have damaged competing U.S. producers. The Department of Commerce previously found that the imported material had been “dumped,” or was sold at unfairly low prices in the U.S. market, and had also benefited from illegal subsidies by the Chinese government. Commerce established punitive tariffs on the Chinese imports last month, setting the antidumping duty and antisubsidy or “countervailing” duty margins at 210.52% and 65.85%, respectively. “As a result of ITC’s affirmative determinations, Commerce will issue antidumping and countervailing duty orders on imports of this product from China,” the commission says. The investigation was prompted by Arch Chemicals, now a part of Lonza, which claimed that there had been a surge of the Chinese product into the U.S. in recent years. Calcium hypochlorite is used primarily as a sanitizing agent for swimming pools, spas, and municipal water treatment systems.