In brief

The Brazilian Secretariat of Foreign Trade (“SECEX“) opened, on 22 June 2023, a new investigation to assess whether the Chinese government granted actionable subsidies to its national producers who exported fiber-optic cables (NCM 8544.70.10) to Brazil.

The investigation may result in the imposition of countervailing measures and the consequent increase in the cost of Brazilian imports of fiber-optic cables for a period of five years. In parallel, there is another ongoing investigation into the alleged practice of dumping by Chinese manufacturers/exporters of the same product, which may result in the imposition of antidumping duties, further raising the cost of Brazilian importers.

Fiber-optic cables are used in telecommunications networks for data, sound and image transmission, long distance communication networks, metropolitan networks, among others.

The full official notice of initiation (in Portuguese) is available here.

Importance of interested parties’ participation

The active participation of importers, exporters and any other interested parties in the investigation may be decisive to ensure a more favorable final determination to the concerned interested party. Interested parties may apply to be heard in the proceedings until 12 July 2023.

Furthermore, interested parties may request the initiation of a public interest investigation be conducted in parallel to the subsidies and countervailing measures investigation. Within the scope of this related investigation, the authority will analyze, based on economic information and studies submitted by the parties, whether the impact of the imposition of the countervailing measure on economic agents as a whole is potentially more harmful compared to the positive effects of the measure.