1/8/2010
GRK of Ontario Wins Exemption From Canadian Anti-Dumping Duties
After a five-year battle with the Canadian government, Ontario-based GRK Fasteners won an exemption from the Canadian International Trade Tribunal on antidumping duties on products it imports from Taiwan.
GRK manufactures more than 350 types of primarily construction screws and has 40 employees in Thunder Bay. Most of GRK’s sales are in the U.S. and the company was preparing to move to another country without a change in the 170% tariffs.
“Yesterday we found out that apparently we’re not dumping any product in Canada and that we never have been dumping any product in Canada, which means that Canadian government has been unfairly collecting excess duties over the last five years,” company president Mirco Walther told Jamie Smith of tbnewswatch.com.
In 2004 Canadian companies filed complaints that Chinese manufacturers were dumping fasteners in Canada at less than the production cost. First there was a 10% duty.
Then the Canadian government added antidumping duties to fasteners from Taiwan in addition to China a 10% duty was added to GRK fasteners manufactured in Taiwan.
Last February the duty was increased to 170%.
“Essentially it priced us out of the market in Canada entirely,” Walther told tbnewswatch.com. “The retail price jumped from $5 to $13. So you can imagine that is impossible to comprehend for average users of our products.”
Walther estimated GRK lost seven figures in the past year due to the duties.
Last fall Walther testified for a full day before the Canadian International Trade Tribunal.
GRK has a possibility of recouping the duties from the government but has lost $400,000 in legal fees over the past five years.
GRK Canada Limited is family owned and operated. In 1983 German fastener manufacturer Reisser Schraubentechnik GmbH hired Uli Walther to manage its Swiss business. In 1990 he became general manager of Reisser’s North American operations and the Walther family – Uli, Gerda, Thorsten and Mirco – moved to Canada and founded GRK Canada Limited.
After Reisser went into bankruptcy in 1992, the Walther family found investors to take over GRK ownership.
Brothers Thorsten Walther and Mirco Walther worked in the warehouse during their high school years and began making sales calls in the U.S.
In 1998 they purchased the shares owned by the 1993 investors. Thorsten Walther died in traffic accident in 2003.
In the late 1990’s, GRK began relationships with wholesale partners in Japan and Europe. GRK opened a branch in Efringern-Kirchen, Germany.
GRK is headquartered at 1499 Rosslyn Rd., Thunder Bay, ON, Canada P7E 6W1 Tel: 807 474-4300 or 800 263-0463 Fax 807 475-9625 E-mail: grk@grkfasteners.com Web: grkfasteners.com ©2010 GlobalFastenerNews.com
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