TOKYO, July 19: Japan will impose tariffs on imports of polyester staple fibres from South Korea and Taiwan because they breached anti-dumping rules, the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI) said on Friday.

A METI official said Japan would impose levies of up to 13.5 per cent on products imported from South Korea and a blanket 10.3 per cent duty on those from Taiwan.

“Our plan has been approved by the committees of the Finance and Trade Ministries so we have decided to impose tariffs,” Yoichi Maeno, director of the ministry’s trade control policy division, told Reuters.

The decision will be finalized by cabinet on Tuesday and take effect next Friday, he said.

The tariffs would be the first anti-dumping curbs by Japan since 1995, when Tokyo imposed extra duties on cotton yarn from Pakistan.

Some 26 South Korean and 13 Taiwan firms would be subject to the duties, a Kyodo news agency report said. Four South Korean textile firms would be exempted from the measure.

Polyester staple fibres are used to make such materials as filling for futons and carpets for automobiles, with demand in Japan totalling more than 200,000 tons a year.

In April 2001, Japan launched a year-long investigation of some 40 textile firms in South Korea and Taiwan.

The government found that the combined dumped exports of the offending firms grew 38.8 per cent in the three years to March 2001, with their share of the domestic market rising 1.9 percentage points to 7.8 per cent, the Kyodo report said.—Reuters