EC to drop anti-dumping duty: Moser Baer

NEW DELHI: Moser Baer India Ltd., the world's third-largest optical CD maker, informed that the European Commission has dropped plans to impose anti-dumping duties on its recordable CDs to be sold in Europe.

New Delhi-based Moser's stock jumped as much as 18.2 percent on the news to hit an intra-day high of Rs 179.70 in heavy volume before retracing to Rs 176.8, still up 16.3 percent. The rise bucked a weaker main index, off 0.64 percent.

"The commission has communicated to us that they propose to terminate the anti-dumping proceedings against us with respect to recordable CDs," a company official, requesting anonymity, told Reuters.

Moser Managing Director Deepak Puri welcomed the news. "The favorable conclusion of the investigation mitigates the uncertainty existing within the market and our shareholder community on the future of our exports to the European Union," he said.

"The move is expected to benefit our customers in the European community and strengthen our long-term relationship with them."

"The commission had not said how much the anti-dumping duties would be on Moser Baer. But it had earlier slapped anti-dumping duties ranging from 17 percent to 38 percent of the sale price of a recordable CD on Taiwanese manufacturers," the unnamed company official said.

Analysts said the news was expected to help the stock price. "Fears of imposition of anti-dumping duties were a big overhang on the stock since the second quarter," said Ramchandra Hegde, analyst at Enam Securities Ltd. "The stock is trading attractively even now and with the removal of this overhang, it should come back to 200-rupee-levels," he added.

© Reuters