Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) 2026/274 of 5 February 2026 amending Implementing Regulation (EU) 2025/1981 imposing a definitive anti-dumping duty on imports of ceramic tableware and kitchenware originating in the People's Republic of China following an expiry review pursuant to Article 11(2) of Regulation (EU) 2016/1036 of the European Parliament and of the Council, following a partial interim review pursuant to Article 11(3) of Regulation (EU) 2016/1036

THE EUROPEAN COMMISSION,

Having regard to the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union,

Having regard to Regulation (EU) 2016/1036 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 8 June 2016 on protection against dumped imports from countries not members of the European Union (1) (‘the basic Regulation’), and in particular Article 7 thereof,

After consulting the Member States,

Whereas:

(1) By Commission Regulation (EU) No 1072/2012 (2), the European Commission (‘the Commission’) imposed a provisional anti-dumping duty on imports of ceramic tableware and kitchenware, originating in the People’s Republic of China (‘China’ or ‘the PRC’).

(2) By Council Implementing Regulation (EU) No 412/2013 (3), the Council imposed anti-dumping duties on imports of ceramic tableware and kitchenware, originating in the PRC (‘the original measures’). The investigation that led to the imposition of the original measures will hereinafter be referred to as ‘the original investigation’.

(3) By Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) 2017/1932 (4), the Commission amended the product scope as defined in the original measures, leading to the exclusion of imports of ceramic condiment or spice mills and their ceramic grinding parts, ceramic coffee mills, ceramic knife sharpeners, ceramic sharpeners, ceramic kitchen tools to be used for cutting, grinding, grating, slicing, scraping and peeling, and cordierite ceramic pizza-stones of a kind used for baking pizza or bread following a partial interim review of the product scope.

(4) By Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) 2019/1198 (5), the Commission, re-imposed the definitive anti-dumping measures on imports of ceramic tableware and kitchenware originating in the People’s Republic of China following an expiry review (the ‘first expiry review’).

(5) By Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) 2019/2131 (6), the Commission amended the existing measures following an anti-circumvention investigation. Implementing Regulation (EU) 2019/2131 extended the duty of 36,1 % applicable to ‘all other companies’ imposed by Article 1(2) of Implementing Regulation (EU) 2019/1198 to imports declared by 33 companies previously subject to a lower duty and found to be circumventing by means of channelling practices via certain Chinese exporting producers, and repealed their TARIC additional codes.

(6) By Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) 2025/1981 (7), the Commission, re-imposed the definitive anti-dumping measures on imports of ceramic tableware and kitchenware originating in the People’s Republic of China following an expiry review.

(7) The individual anti-dumping duty rates currently in force range from 13,1 % to 18,3 %. All non-sampled cooperating exporting producers in the investigation leading to the original measures (‘the original investigation’) received a duty rate of 17,9 % and all other companies are subject to the residual duty rate of 36,1 %.

(8) On 19 December 2024 the Commission initiated a partial interim review limited in scope to the examination of dumping with regard to imports of ceramic tableware and kitchenware originating in the People’s Republic of China on the basis of Article 11(3) of the basic Regulation. It published a Notice of Initiation in the Official Journal of the European Union (8) (‘the Notice of Initiation’).

(9) The Commission initiated the investigation following a request for a review limited to dumping lodged on 17 October 2024 by Cerame Unie / The European Federation of Ceramic Table and Ornamentalware (FEPF) (‘Cerame Unie’ or ‘the applicant’). The request was made on behalf of the Union industry of ceramic tableware and kitchenware in the sense of Article 5(4) of the basic Regulation. The request contained evidence of dumping and of lasting nature of the changed circumstances that was sufficient to justify the initiation of the investigation.

(10) Following the final disclosure, the unrelated importer Holst Porzellan GmbH requested to discontinue the proceeding, considering that the investigation was based on a request dated 17 October 2024 while, according to the company no request with that date was available in the file for inspection by interested parties.

(11) The Commission clarified that the Notice of Initiation referred to the request that was submitted and received on 16 October 2024 and consequently, as for Commission’s practice and Article 5(1) of the basic Regulation, considered as lodged on the following day. The non confidential version of the request was also made available in the file for inspection by interested parties, who were given 37 days to comment on it (9).

(12) Holst Porzellan claimed that a significant number of the supporting Union manufacturers listed by Cerame Unie are not involved in the product concerned or not affected by imports from China. Furthermore, the importer requested the full list of manufacturers that were in support of the request.

(13) Host Porzellan did not produce any evidence as regards this claim. The request was lodged on 17 October 2024 by the applicant on behalf of the Union industry of ceramic tableware and kitchenware. According to Article 5(4) of the basic Regulation, an investigation shall be initiated where Union producers expressly supporting the complaint account for more than 25 % of total production of the like product produced by the Union industry. As Cerame Unie was estimated to represent more than 37 % of the total production of the Union industry, this condition was fulfilled and the claim was therefore rejected.

(14) The investigation of dumping covered the period from 1 July 2023 to 30 June 2024 (‘the review investigation period’).

(15) In the Notice of Initiation, the Commission invited interested parties to contact it in order to participate in the investigation. In addition, the Commission specifically informed the known exporting producers, traders, the Chinese authorities and known importers about the initiation of the investigation and invited them to participate.

(16) Interested parties had an opportunity to comment on the initiation of the investigation and to request a hearing with the Commission and/or the Hearing Officer in trade proceedings.

(17) In the Notice of Initiation, the Commission stated that it might sample the interested parties in accordance with Article 17 of the basic Regulation.

(18) To decide whether sampling is necessary and, if so, to select a sample, the Commission asked all exporting producers in China to provide the information specified in the Notice of Initiation. In addition, the Commission asked the Mission of the People’s Republic of China to the European Union to identify and/or contact other exporting producers, if any, that could be interested in participating in the investigation.

(19) 567 exporting producers in the country concerned provided the requested information and agreed to be included in the sample. These cooperating Chinese exporting producers together represented over 80 % of the total imports from China during the review investigation period.

(20) After analysing the information supplied by the Chinese exporting producers, the Commission decided to limit its investigation to a reasonable number of exporting producers by selecting a sample in accordance with Article 17(1) of the basic Regulation. On 21 February 2025 the Commission provisionally selected a sample of two groups of exporting producers based on the largest sales volume to the Union during the review investigation period (10). The two sampled groups covered more than 10 % of the estimated total export quantity of ceramic tableware and kitchenware to the Union from China during the review investigation period.

(21) In accordance with Article 17(2) of the basic Regulation, all known exporting producers concerned and the authorities of the country concerned were consulted on the selection of the sample. The Commission received comments from the applicant and from one of the provisionally sampled exporting producers.

(22) Cerame Unie pointed out that it was not possible for them to comment on the choice of Hunan Hualian China Industry and Hunan Hualian Ebillion China Industry (‘Hunan Hualian Group’) due to omissions in the open version. Cerame Unie also pointed out discrepancies between the response of one exporting producer to the sampling form and their sampling form submission in the last expiry review. Cerame Unie suggested that the company may have voluntarily omitted sales to avoid being sampled and urged the Commission to clarify the situation.

(23) The Commission reviewed the submissions of Hunan Hualian China Industry and Hunan Hualian Ebillion China Industry and requested the companies to provide an updated open version, which was then added to the open file (11). Regarding the exporting producer with alleged inconsistent submissions, the Commission cross-checked the volume of exports to the EU reported in the sampling form with the volumes registered under the company’s additional TARIC code, and found that, although there were indeed discrepancies between the two figures, the corrected volume of exports to the EU would still have been too low for the company to be placed among the largest exporting producers, and thus, included in the sample. Therefore, the correction did not affect the decision not to sample the company.

(24) One of the groups that had been selected in the provisional sample, Fun Lin Wah Group, submitted comments clarifying that they had included sales to unrelated traders that exported to the EU as their own EU sales, and could not guarantee cooperation from those unrelated traders.

(25) On 13 May 2025, the Commission issued a note to the file informing interested parties that, following comments received on the provisional sample, in accordance with section 5.3 of the Notice of Initiation, it had amended its previously selected provisional sample of exporting producers to include one additional group under the name of Hunan Huazhi Group. No further comments were received. On 21 May 2025, the Commission confirmed the definitive sample (12) of exporting producers, whose exports covered over 12 % of the reported quantity exported to the European Union during the review investigation period, by the cooperating exporting producers. No comments were received.

(26) After disclosure, one of the sampled exporting producers, Hunan Huazhi Group, argued that despite the high cooperation obtained, representing over 80 % of all imports of ceramic tableware and kitchenware during the IP, the sampled exporting producers represented merely 12 % of the estimated imports into the Union during the review investigation period. Given that, in its view, the sample was not representative, the conclusions reached during the verification of the sampled companies cannot be extended to the rest of the industry.

(27) The importer Holst Porzellan criticised the selection of the sample and considered it as non-representative compared to the total number of ceramic tableware manufacturers in China and the variation of individual dumping margins that were subject to the groups. Another unrelated importer, Josef Mäser GmbH, objected to the representativity of the sample under the claim that all producers were located within the same region in the PRC, not offering a representative geographical balance.

(28) The Commission recalled that the sample was selected in accordance with the provisions of the basic Regulation. Given the fragmentation of the market, the Commission considered that extending the sample would have been unduly burdensome and would have not yield any significant improvements in term of representativeness. For perspective, including in the sample the next biggest exporting producer of ceramic tableware would have increased the representativeness of the sample by less than 2 percentage points. On the matter of geographical distribution, the Commission informed Josef Mäser GmbH that the sampled exporting producers were, in fact, located in three different administrative regions. In addition, on 13 May 2025 the Commission issued a note to the file informing the interested parties of the composition of the final sample of exporting producers, no comments were received. Therefore, these claims were dismissed.

(29) In order to decide whether sampling was necessary and, if so, to select a sample, the Commission asked unrelated importers to provide the information specified in the Notice of Initiation.

(30) No importer came forward.

(31) Upon definitive disclosure, several importers claimed that they had not been informed of the initiation of the investigation. Additionally, some of these importers denounced that the lack of an importer sample had negatively impacted the outcome of the investigation.

(32) With the Notice of Initiation, the Commission invited unrelated importers to register as interested party and to participate in the sampling exercise. However, as described in recital 30, no importer came forward and therefore sampling was not necessary.

(33) Upon initiation, 19 exporting producers in China expressed an interest in being subject to an individual examination, however none of those 19 companies submitted a reply to the sampling questionnaire. It was therefore considered that no company had formally requested individual examination under Article 17(3) of the basic Regulation.

(34) The Commission sent a questionnaire concerning the existence of significant distortions in the PRC within the meaning of Article 2(6a)(b) of the basic Regulation to the Government of the People’s Republic of China (‘GOC’). The GOC did not submit any responses to the questionnaire.

(35) The Commission sent questionnaires to the three groups of companies in the sample. The same questionnaires were made available online (13) on the day of initiation.

(36) The Commission sought and verified all the information deemed necessary for a determination of dumping.

(38) The product under review is the same as defined in Implementing Regulation (EU) 2017/1932 following a product scope review initiated on 12 April 2017 (14), that is ceramic tableware and kitchenware, excluding ceramic condiment or spice mills and their ceramic grinding parts, ceramic coffee mills, ceramic knife sharpeners, ceramic sharpeners, ceramic kitchen tools to be used for cutting, grinding, grating, slicing, scraping and peeling, and cordierite ceramic pizza-stones of a kind used for baking pizza or bread (‘the product under review’), currently falling under CN codes ex 6911 10 00 , ex 6912 00 21 , ex 6912 00 23 , ex 6912 00 25 and ex 6912 00 29 (TARIC codes 6911 10 00 90, 6912 00 21 11, 6912 00 21 91, 6912 00 23 10, 6912 00 25 10 and 6912 00 29 10) and originating in the People’s Republic of China (‘the product concerned’ or ‘ceramic tableware and kitchenware’).

(39) Ceramic tableware and kitchenware can be made of porcelain (including bone China), of common pottery, stoneware, earthenware or fine pottery or other materials. The final ceramic product depends on the type and composition of the main raw materials such as clay, kaolin, feldspar and quartz.

(40) Ceramic tableware and kitchenware products are commercialised in a large variety of forms that have been evolving over time. They are used in a wide range of places, e.g. households, hotels, restaurants or care establishments and are principally intended to come into contact with food.

(41) After disclosure, several unrelated importers came forward and requested the exclusion of certain products from the measures, including, among others, sublimation-coated ceramics, polyester coated ceramic blanks for sublimation printing, ceramic blanks with one or more paint coatings.

(42) The Commission recalled that the product concerned by this investigation is the same as defined in the regulation imposing the original measures and the scope of the interim review is limited to the investigation of dumping, as mentioned in section 1 of the Notice of Initiation. Moreover, the importers failed to provide any actual evidence, including with respect to the physical, technical and chemical characteristics of the products, in order to justify their exclusion. The requests were therefore rejected.

(43) The product concerned by this investigation is the product under review originating in the People’s Republic of China currently falling under CN codes 6911 10 00 , ex 6912 00 21 , ex 6912 00 23 , ex 6912 00 25 and ex 6912 00 29 (TARIC codes 6911 10 00 90, 6912 00 21 11, 6912 00 21 91, 6912 00 23 10, 6912 00 25 10 and 6912 00 29 10) (‘the product concerned’).

(45) The Commission decided at this stage that those products are therefore like products within the meaning of Article 1(4) of the basic Regulation.

(46) Following the final disclosure, the Commission received comments on the dumping margin calculation from the applicant, the three sampled exporting producers, the China Chamber of Commerce for Import and Export of Light Industrial Products and Arts-Crafts (‘CCCLA’), and several importers.

(47) Hearings took place with Hunan Hualian Group, POS Germany, Sayano Deutschland GmbH, Holst Porzellan GmbH, Josef Mäser GmbH, and Ritzenhoff & Breker GmbH.

(48) In view of the sufficient evidence available at the initiation of the investigation pointing to the existence of significant distortions within the meaning of point (b) of Article 2(6a) of the basic Regulation with regard to the PRC, the Commission considered it appropriate to initiate the investigation with regard to the exporting producers from this country having regard to Article 2(6a) of the basic Regulation.

(49) Consequently, in order to collect the necessary data for the eventual application of Article 2(6a) of the basic Regulation, in the Notice of Initiation the Commission invited all exporting producers in the PRC to provide information regarding the inputs used for producing ceramic tableware and kitchenware. 68 exporting producers submitted the relevant information.

(50) In order to obtain information it deemed necessary for its investigation with regard to the alleged significant distortions, the Commission sent a questionnaire to the GOC. In addition, in point 5.2 of the Notice of Initiation, the Commission invited all interested parties to make their views known, submit information and provide supporting evidence regarding the application of Article 2(6a) of the basic Regulation within 37 days of the date of publication of the Notice of Initiation in the Official Journal of the European Union.

(51) No questionnaire reply was received from the GOC and no submission on the application of Article 2(6a) of the basic Regulation was received within the deadline. Subsequently, the Commission informed the GOC that it would use facts available within the meaning of Article 18 of the basic Regulation for the determination of the existence of the significant distortions in the PRC. No comments were received.