Philippines/Thailand: The Philippines Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) has launched an investigation into imports of Thai gypsum wallboard. The investigation forms the first stage in the process of potentially implementing a tariff on gypsum wallboard entering the Philippines from Thailand. The investigation will seek to establish whether dumping of the product occurred between January and May 2023, and whether the wallboard industry of the Philippines experienced any injury due to imports from Thailand between 2019 and 2022. The Philippine Star newspaper has reported that the DTI accepted an application for an investigation from Knauf Gypsum Philippines on 24 November 2023.
The DTI preliminarily stated that “There was a substantial margin of dumping of gypsum board from Thailand for the period January to December 2022 based on the domestic wholesale and export prices as gathered by the gypsum board industry.” It added “Based on the aforementioned, there is a prima facie evidence that the domestic industry suffered material injury before the acquisition efforts as evidenced by the low market share of the domestic industry ranging from 23% to 40%, operating losses and price suppression from 2019 to 2021 and price undercutting in 2021.”
