History 2002: After Europe, South Korea Taxing Taiwanese CD-Rs

Now that Europe has imposed anti-dumping fines on Taiwanese CD-R makers, ranging from 18.8% to 39.5%, it’s South Korea’s turn to rub salt in the wound, even if in this case, all Taiwanese manufacturers are subject to the same tax of as much as 51.72%, effective the end of January.

The new levy came in a preliminary decision by the Korean Ministry of Finance and Economy, with a final decision expected in April after further investigation.

The decision was reached following dumping allegations by SKC, which is a South Korean CD-R manufacturer, vs. Ritek, CMC Magnetics and K-Well.

In addition to SKC, 2 other Korean companies have secured CD-R manufacturing licenses from Philips: Doremi Media and Woongjin Coway Development.

According to the Korean Trade Commission, which investigated the case, CD-R imports from Taiwan claimed an 8.9% share of the local market in January 1998, compared to 60.6% or 31 million units in June 2001.

This article is an abstract of news published on issue 169 on February 2002 from the former paper version of Computer Data Storage Newsletter.