The EU Anti-Dumping Cases against Chinese and Vietnamese Bicycles

Abstract

In this final empirical chapter, I will analyze the role of import-competitors and import-dependent firms during the EU anti-dumping cases against bicycle imports from China and Vietnam. Both cases took place in the 2004–2005 period. Due to the rapidly increasing influx of Chinese and Vietnamese bicycles into the European market between 2001 and 2004, import-competing firms suspected that companies from both countries were dumping their products on the European market. The association representing the import-competing bicycle firms in the EU, the European Bicycle Manufacturing Association (EBMA), sent two requests to the European Commission in 2004: one for an interim review of the antidumping measures on imports from Chinese bicycles and one for investigation into imports from Vietnamese bicycles. In the case of Chinese bicycle imports, this was already the fourth time the EBMA had filed an anti-dumping complaint (the first one was in 1993), while it was the first ever complaint against Vietnam. As a result of these two anti-dumping proceedings, firms depending on bicycle imports from these two countries — that is, bicycle distributors/retailers, sporting goods retailers, and supermarkets — were confronted with a (potential) loss in income and had to choose between political mobilization and adjustment.