Riyadh, July 05 Saudi petrochemicals producers said on Saturday they would seek duties on imports from China after Beijing began a dumping probe on petrochemical products from Saudi Arabia and three other countries.
Abdulrahman Al-Zamil, leading businessman and former deputy minister of commerce, said China had no grounds to pursue the dumping investigation on imports of methanol and butanediol (BDO) it launched in late June. “We do not subsidise our exporters” of petrochemicals, he told a news conference.
“This is not fair for two major partners,” he said, referring to China and Saudi Arabia’s mostly duty-free bilateral trade, which surpassed 40 billion dollars in 2008, according to SABB bank.
Zamil told reporters Saudi exporters feared China would levy punitive tariffs on the two products from Saudi Arabia, Indonesia, Malaysia and New Zealand while a lengthy investigation goes on at the request of several Chinese producers.
“The damage will take place while they are studying it for one, two, even 100 years, “ he said.
Methanol and BDO make up between 10 and 15 percent of Saudi Arabia’s two billion dollars in annual petrochemicals exports to China, according to Zamil.
He said the group was asking the Saudi government to place tariffs on industrial imports from China in return.
“The Chinese are dumping on our market,” he said.
“We want our government … to apply the same principles, the same customs duties” that the Chinese are placing on Saudi goods, he said.
SABIC opened its first office in Asia in Hong Kong in 1985 and set up its office in Shanghai in 1996. Asia accounts for around 40 percent of SABIC’s exports with a huge portion of that heading to China. – AFPWhat’s at stakeChina is the largest, as well as the fastest-growing market in Asia – not only for SABIC but for every major businesses in the world.
SABIC is already one of the largest ethylene glycol and polymer providers to China.
SABIC also has facilities such as an MEG terminal and a warehouse in Shanghai for polyethylene and polypropylene to shorten delivery time to customers in China.
Although China’s petrochemical industry is growing fast, the demand is growing even faster putting pressure on its energy industry.
–Agencies–