The U.S. Department of Commerce issued a final determination that dumping would likely continue or recur at very high dumping margins if current antidumping remedies are revoked against imports of gray portland cement and clinker from Mexico and Venezuela. Findings were issued in pending five-year "sunset" reviews of the antidumping order on cement from Mexico and the antidumping suspension agreement on cement from Venezuela.

The Commerce Department imposed an antidumping order on Mexican cement in August 1990, after the U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC) determined that imports from Mexico had materially injured U.S. cement producers. The antidumping investigation on cement from Venezuela was suspended in February 1992 on the basis of an agreement by Venezuelan cement exports to revise their prices to eliminate dumping.

In the pending reviews, the Commerce Department is required to determine whether revocation of the existing antidumping remedies would be likely to lead to continuation or recurrence of dumping and to calculate the margin of dumping that would be likely in the event of revocation. The predicted dumping margin is provided to the ITC, which must determine whether revocation of the anti-dumping remedies would be likely to lead to continuation or recurrence of injury to the domestic industry.

The department found that revocation of the antidumping order on imports from Mexico would likely result in an average dumping margin of 59.91%. This finding reaffirms the repeated findings in all of the eight annual administrative reviews of the antidumping order that Cemex has continued dumping cement into the U.S. at very high margins despite the existence of the order.

In addition, the department found a company-specific dumping margin for Cemex of 91.94%. They also found that terminating the suspension agreement with Venezuela would likely result in an average dumping margin of 49.26%. The Commerce Department had previously determined that revocation of the antidumping order on imports from Japan would likely result in an average margin of 70.23%.

According to Joe Dorn, counsel for the Southern Tier Cement Committee, "These high margins and the findings that Cemex has been absorbing the cost of the duties instead of passing them on to its U.S. customers - together with other evidence that Mexican, Venezuelan, and Japanese exporters would aggressively penetrate regional U.S. cement markets - should lead the ITC to find that revocation of the remedies would likely result in the recurrence of injury to U.S. producers."