NOTICES

                         DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE

                     International Trade Administration

                                [C-533-063]

    Certain Iron-metal Castings From India: Amended Final Results of Countervailing
         Duty Administrative Review in Accordance With Decision Upon Remand

                         Wednesday, December 9, 1998

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 AGENCY: International Trade Administration, Import Administration,
 Department of Commerce

 ACTION: Notice of amendment to final results of countervailing duty administrative
 review in accordance with decision upon remand.

 SUMMARY: On September 29, 1998, in Creswell Trading Co. v. United States, Slip Op. No
 98-139., the United States Court of International Trade (CIT) affirmed the Department of
 Commerce's (the Department's) redetermination on remand regarding the administrative
 review covering the period January 1, 1985, through December 31, 1985. In accordance
 with the CIT's instructions, the Department has recalculated the countervailing duty
 rates. The final countervailing duty rates for this review period are listed below in the
 Results of Remand section.

 EFFECTIVE DATE: December 9, 1998.

 FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Robert Copyak or Richard Herring, Office of
 AD/CVD Enforcement VI, Import Administration, International 

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 Trade
 Administration, U.S. Department of Commerce, 14th & Constitution Avenue, N.W., Room
 4012, Washington, D.C. 20230; telephone (202) 482-2786.

 SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: On December 10, 1990, the Department published in
 the Federal Register (55 FR 50747) the final results of its administrative review of the
 countervailing duty order on certain iron-metal castings from India for the period
 January 1, 1985, through December 1, 1985. Subsequently, respondents challenged the
 Department's final results before the Court of International Trade (CIT) regarding the
 Department's methodology for calculating program rates for the subsidies provided under
 India's International Price Reimbursement Scheme (IPRS).
 The IPRS is a program through which the Government of India ("GOI") provided rebates to
 castings exporters that purchased domestically-produced pig iron at prices set by the GOI.
 According to the GOI, the amounts of these rebates were calculated to equal the differences
 between the higher prices actually paid for domestic pig iron and alternative prices of pig
 iron available from sources outside of India. In the 1985 administrative review of the
 countervailing duty order, the Department determined that the IPRS program was
 countervailable in its entirety because the rebates provided preferential prices for
 exporters which were not available to domestic purchasers of pig iron. Indian exporters
 appealed to the CIT, claiming that the Department should have examined whether the IPRS
 program met the criteria for non-countervailability under Item (d) of the Illustrative List of
 Export Subsidies. The CIT agreed and remanded the case to the Department. Creswell
 Trading Co. v. United States, 783 F. Supp. 1418 (CIT 1992) ("Creswell I"). The Department
 again determined that the program was countervailable in its entirety because the Indian
 exporters did not provide sufficient information to conduct an Item (d) analysis. The CIT
 upheld the Department's position on the first remand of the 1985 review. Creswell Trading
 Co. v. United States, 797 F. Supp. 1038 (CIT 1992) ("Creswell II").
 The Indian exporters appealed Creswell II to U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit
 (Federal Circuit). On February 2, 1994, in Creswell Trading Co., v. United States, 15 F.3d
 1054 (Fed. Cir. 1994) ("Creswell III"), the Federal Circuit held that the Indian exporters had
 met their burden of producing evidence regarding prices for pig iron on the world market.
 Consequently, the Federal Circuit instructed the CIT to remand the final results of the 1985
 administrative review to the Department with instructions to conduct an Item (d) analysis
 of the IPRS program taking into consideration pig iron pricing information placed on the
 record by the Indian exporters. On April 25, 1994, pursuant to the opinion of the Federal
 Circuit in Creswell III, the CIT remanded the final results of the 1985 administrative review
 to the Department for the second time.
 In the second remand, the Department found that the IPRS program fit within the general
 concept of the Item (d) exception in that the program attempted to rebate to Indian casting
 exporters the difference between the higher cost of Indian pig iron and the lower cost of
 foreign-sourced pig iron. The Department interpreted Item (d) to permit a comparison of
 delivered prices in order to give effect to the Item (d) language which required an analysis
 of "such terms and conditions" that made foreign-sourced pig iron "commercially available
 on world markets to [Indian] exporters." The Department determined that, because the
 payments to Indian exporters under the IPRS program enabled castings exporters to obtain
 pig iron on terms "more favorable than those available on world markets," the payments
 were excessive. Accordingly, the Department determined that the payments were
 countervailable to the extent they covered scrap used in the production of castings and to
 the extent ocean freight was excluded from the international benchmark price. In Creswell
 Trading Co. v. United States, 936 F. Supp. 1072 (CIT 1996) ("Creswell IV"), the CIT affirmed
 the Department's determination that the IPRS program fit within the ambit of the Item (d)
 exception. It also affirmed the Department's determination to countervail IPRS payments
 for scrap, but disapproved of the Department's determination that an Item (d) analysis
 requires comparing delivered prices to delivered prices, inclusive of ocean freight. On
 September 30, 1996, the Department submitted its third redetermination on remand, in
 which it excluded the cost of ocean freight from the international benchmark price for pig
 iron, and the CIT affirmed it in Creswell Trading Co. v. United States, 964 F. Supp. 409 (CIT
 1997) ("Creswell V"). The Department then appealed Creswell V with respect to the
 exclusion of ocean freight from the world market price of pig iron. The Federal Circuit
 reversed, in part, the CIT's opinion in Creswell V, stating in relevant part that the CIT "erred
 in holding that the oceanic shipping costs did not constitute countervailable subsidies
 under Item (d)." Creswell Trading Co. v. United States, 141 F.3rd 1471, 1477 (1998)
 ("Creswell VI"). The Federal Circuit went on to state that:
 Item (d) specifies that delivery of products by a foreign government to exporters on terms
 or conditions more favorable than are "commercially available" to those exporters on the
 world markets constitutes a countervailable subsidy. Item (d) thus recognizes that foreign
 governments may subsidize their domestic industries to allow them to compete effectively
 on the world market as long as the extent of the subsidization is not more favorable to their
 exporters than if those exporters had to participate in the world market without assistance.
 If the amount of the subsidization exceeds this point, it is excessive and this excessive
 amount is countervailable under Item (d). Accordingly, Item (d) mandates a comparison
 between the terms and conditions under which product was supplied to exporters by their
 governments and the terms and conditions to which those exporters would have been
 subject had they instead participated in the world market.
 Id. Further, the Federal Circuit explained that:
 A castings manufacturer procuring pig iron on the world market would have to pay the FOB
 price for the pig iron itself, plus the cost of shipping that iron to India. Accordingly, the
 world market price must include the cost of shipping. To the extent that the Indian
 government's world market price did not include oceanic shipping costs, its world market
 price was artificially low and its rebate artificially high by this amount. The price of pig iron
 that is not delivered to India cannot be fairly compared with the price of pig iron that is
 delivered. Thus, because of the omission of oceanic shipping costs from the calculation of
 the world market price, the IPRS program has in effect provided pig iron to India's castings
 manufacturers on terms and conditions more favorable than had those manufacturers
 actually procured pig iron on the world market.
 Id. 141 F.3rd at 1478.

 Results of Remand

 In accordance with the CIT's order dated June 24, 1998, the Department prepared final
 results of redetermination on remand with respect to the final results of the 1985
 countervailing duty administrative review of iron-metal castings from India. Pursuant
 to the CIT's remand instructions, which were issued as a result of Creswell VI, the
 Department, in recalculating the countervailable subsidy conferred under India's IPRS
 program, included ocean freight in the international benchmark price for pig iron. The
 Department has recalculated the subsidies provided under the IPRS program consistent
 with 

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 the opinion of the Federal Circuit in Creswell VI.
 On September 29, 1998, the CIT affirmed the Department's redetermination. Creswell
 Trading Co. v. United States, Slip Op. No. 98-139. No comments were received by the CIT
 contesting the Department's redetermination. Therefore, in accordance with the results of
 remand affirmed by the CIT, we are amending the final results of administrative review. The
 final countervailing duty rates for the 1985 period of review are the following:
 Carnation Enterprise Pvt. Ltd.--13.83%
 Crescent Foundry Co. Pvt. Ltd.--30.09%
 Govind Steel--51.39%
 Kejriwal Iron & Steel Works--14.09%
 R.B. Agarwalla & Co.--7.96%
 R.S.I.--8.22%
 Serampore Industries Pvt. Ltd.--22.09%
 Uma Iron & Steel Co.--15.64%
 Kajaria Castings Ltd.--44.84%
 Super Castings Ltd.--29.40%
 Country-wide Rate--22.09%
 The Department will instruct the Customs Service to assess countervailing duties on all
 appropriate entries. The Department will issue liquidation instructions directly to the
 Customs Service. The above rate will not affect the cash deposit requirements currently in
 effect, which will continue to be based on the rates found to exist in the most recently
 completed review.
 This amendment to the final results of countervailing duty administrative review notice
 is in accordance with section 751(a)(1) of the Tariff Act, as amended, (19 U.S.C. 1675(a)(1))
 and §355.22 of the Department's regulations (19 CFR 355.22 (1989)).
 Dated: December 1, 1998.

 Robert S. LaRussa,

 Assistant Secretary for Import Administration.

 [FR Doc. 98-32721 Filed 12-8-98; 8:45 am]

 BILLING CODE 3510-DS-P