The Indonesian government has denied dumping allegations made by the U.S. government about Indonesian exports of coated free sheet paper, a report said Saturday.

Director of Trade Surveillance at the Trade Ministry Martua Sihombing said that the dumping charges levied by the U.S. Commerce Department were groundless.

By using raw materials sourced from fast-growing tree species, Indonesian paper products, including coated free sheet paper, are cheaper than those produced by other countries, he said as quoted by English daily The Jakarta Post.

He said that the government, together with the paper industry, had enough evidence to counter the dumping charges.

"We are cooperating with the Forestry Ministry and the Directorate General of Taxes to collate all the available evidence, " he said.

The U.S. Commerce Department announced on Nov. 21 its decision to initiate an anti-dumping and countervailing duty investigation into imports of coated free sheet paper from Indonesia.

"This is the second allegation from the U.S. against Indonesian paper products," Martua said.

Last year, the United States also launched a dumping investigation into imports of certain lined paper products from Indonesia, and then increased the import duty on them by up to 118 percent, in addition to the 33.3 percent preliminary countervailing duties already imposed, after Indonesian paper producers refused to cooperate with the investigation.

The U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC) is scheduled to make its preliminary injury determination on Dec. 15, 2006.

According to the ITC, Indonesia exported 27 million kilograms of paper worth nearly 22 million U.S. dollars to the United States in 2005.

Source: Xinhua