The federal Anti-Dumping Commission is investigating allegations made by SPC that Italy is dumping tinned tomatoes on the Australian market at reduced and subsidised prices, causing material injury to the Australian industry.
Acting Anti-Dumping Commissioner, Isolde Lueckenhausen, said SPC’s application and other relevant information showed there were reasonable grounds to support the claims.
Its investigation will look at the market from 1 October 2023 to 30 September 2024.
The commission analysed SPC’s sales data and import data extracted from ABF imports database that covers the entire market at the wholesale level of trade.
“SPC provided scan data from Coles and Woolworths with its application that indicates that Italian imports have increased in market share at the retail level and, correspondingly, goods manufactured by SPC have lost sales volumes. This is relevant since Coles and Woolworths make up most of the Australian retail market for the goods,” it said.
SPC’s application is just for tinned tomatoes (not pastes, purees, juice, pasta sauces etc.) labelled with a generic, a house brand/private label for the retailer, or a proprietary label. The imported prepared or preserved tomatoes the subject of this application include all imported prepared or preserved tomatoes regardless of how labelled.
SPC produces prepared or preserved tomatoes in the form of chopped, flavoured, whole and crushed tomatoes. The company said while diced products are preferred by the vast majority of consumers, price is the key purchase criteria.
The commission said there appeared to be reasonable grounds to support SPC’s claims that tinned tomatoes from Italy had been exported to Australia at dumped prices and subsidised, and that the estimated dumping margin for exports from Italy (more than two per cent) was not negligible. The subsidy margin is more than one per cent.
The estimated volume of goods Italy that appear to have been dumped and subsdised – more than three per cent of the total Australian import volume of goods – was also not negligible.
It found evidence to support SPC’s claim of injury including loss of sales volume, lost market share, price suppression, price depression, loss of profits, loss of profitability, reduced (lower) revenue, and higher finished goods inventories. But said there wasn’t evidence supporting claims the industry had suffered from reduced return on investment (ROI), reduced capacity utilisation, reduced employment, or reduced hours worked.
Regarding the size of the dumping margin, SPC estimated 65.8 per cent. The commission’s initial investigation put it at 46.1 per cent, and said an import duty of 46 per cent would be required to level the playing field for local producers.
The AFR reported the European Union's submission to the commission likened Australia’s probe into the matter as like that of China’s actions towards Australian products in recent years. Its submission to the Anti-Dumping Commission said the allegations could cause “significant political tension” among its member countries, and any other inquiries into the region’s food exports “especially on the basis of questionable evidence, would be very badly perceived”.
In 2023, Australia ranked as the EU’s 21st biggest partner for trade in goods, while the EU was Australia’s third-largest trading partner after China and Japan (but before the US). Total trade in goods accounted for €52.1 billion in 2023 (EU surplus of €24.8 bn), and total trade in services added another €34.3 billion in 2022 (EU surplus €16.5 bn).
