February 14th 2012 the EU self initiated yet another investigation into the import of Chinese hand pallet trucks into the EU.
February 2013 saw the publication of R545 Proposal to amend EU 1008/2011 to increase the anti dumping duty across ALL manufacturers exporting from China to 88.1%. Although not yet law, and subject to review in Brussels over the next few weeks should the new duty level be applied this will make pallet trucks in the EU very expensive. Knowing that the current EU manufacturers can only manufacture 15% of the total annual appetite for the EU how does the readership feel about inflated prices and the subsequent stock vacuum that will occur? Also will the extra duties generated be directed back to the EU manufacturers or the current importers who will no doubt be left in financial peril? Lets face it, with 85% of the EU pallet truck market being supplied by China the only losers will be the end users who will pay in theory 88.1% more!
andy@european-handlingdotcom