Introductory text

THE COMMISSION OF THE EUROPEAN COMMUNITIES,

Having regard to the Treaty establishing the European Community,

Having regard to Council Regulation (EC) No 384/96 of 22 December 1995 on protection against dumped imports from countries not members of the European Community^f1 (the basic Regulation),

Having regard to Council Regulation (EC) No 71/97 of 10 January 1997 extending the definitive anti-dumping duty imposed by Council Regulation (EEC) No 2474/93 on bicycles originating in the People’s Republic of China to imports of certain bicycle parts from the People’s Republic of China, and levying the extended duty on such imports registered under Regulation (EC) No 703/96^f2, maintained by Council Regulation (EC) No 1524/2000^f3 (the extending Regulation),

Having regard to Commission Regulation (EC) No 88/97 of 20 January 1997 on the authorisation of the exemption of imports of certain bicycle parts originating in the People’s Republic of China from the extension by Council Regulation (EC) No 71/97 of the anti-dumping duty imposed by Council Regulation (EEC) No 2474/93^f4 (the exemption Regulation), maintained by Regulation (EC) No 1524/2000, and in particular Article 7 thereof,

After consulting the Advisory Committee,

Whereas:

After the entry into force of the exemption Regulation, a number of bicycle assemblers submitted requests pursuant to Article 3 of that Regulation for exemption of the anti-dumping duty as extended to imports of certain bicycle parts from the People’s Republic of China by Regulation (EC) No 71/97 (the extended anti-dumping duty). The Commission has published in the Official Journal of the European Union successive lists of applicants^f5 for which payment of the extended anti-dumping duty in respect of their imports of essential bicycle parts declared for free circulation was suspended pursuant to Article 5(1) of the exemption Regulation.

The facts as finally ascertained by the Commission show that for all these applicants’ bicycle assembly operations, the value of the parts originating in the People’s Republic of China which were used in their assembly operations was lower than 60 % of the total value of the parts used in these assembly operations, and they, therefore, fall outside the scope of Article 13(2) of the basic Regulation.

For the above reasons, and in accordance with Article 7(1) of the exemption Regulation, the parties listed in the above table should be exempted from the extended anti-dumping duty.

In accordance with Article 7(2) of the exemption Regulation, the exemption of the parties listed in table 1 from the extended anti-dumping duty should take effect as from the date of receipt of their requests. In addition their customs debt in respect of the extended anti-dumping duty is to be considered void as from the date of receipt of their requests for exemption.

With regard to these requests, it should be noted that:

1. (a)

   one party withdrew its request for exemption;

2. (b)

   another party does not use the bicycle parts for the production or the assembly or completion of bicycles.

Since the parties listed in table 2 failed to meet the criteria for exemption set by Article 4 of the exemption Regulation, the Commission has to reject their requests for exemption, in accordance with Article 7(3) of the Regulation. In the light of this, the suspension of the payment of the extended anti-dumping duty referred to in Article 5 of the exemption Regulation must be lifted and the extended anti-dumping duty must be collected as from the date of receipt of the requests submitted by these parties.

Following the adoption of this Decision, an updated list of parties exempted pursuant to Article 7 of the exemption Regulation and of parties whose requests pursuant to Article 3 of that Regulation are under examination should be published in the C series of the Official Journal of the European Union in accordance with Article 16(2) of that Regulation,

HAS ADOPTED THIS DECISION: