The kneejerk protectionists strike another blow to price European companies – most of which are heavy users of floppy disks – out of world markets. The European Commission has imposed provisional antidumping duties valid for four months on imports of 3.5 floppies at 44% for disks from the US and Mexico and 46.4% from Malaysia. Three companies that co-operated with the so called anti dumping investigation are exempt: Minnesota Mining & Manufacturing Co, and Japanese owned TDK Corp and Verbatim Inc. The disks exported from Malaysia by Mega High Tech Bhd carry 13% duty, and by Disccomp Bhd, 24.8%. The decision follows an investigation launched in September last year at the request off Diskma, a European disk manufacturers’s association. The Community already imposes duties on floppies imported from Japan, China, Taiwan and Hong Kong and in the latest case, the Commission concluded that hardly pervasive European producers (the only prominent one is Japanese chemicals giant Kao Corp in Spain unless BASF AG still makes the things in Europe) were suffering serious injury from price undercutting. The three countries affected by the ruling have a market share of some 25%.
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