Korea MOEF provisional anti-dumping duty (9.53–19.17%) on Chinese butyl acrylate

Mechanism

Korea's anti-dumping process is bifurcated the same way as its other 2026 trade-remedy cases: the KTC (Korea Trade Commission, under MOTIE) runs the dumping-margin/injury investigation and votes on a preliminary determination; MOEF (Ministry of Economy and Finance) then formally decides and gazettes the provisional duty. Here the KTC adopted its preliminary affirmative determination on 12 February 2026 and recommended a provisional anti-dumping duty range of 9.53–19.17%. MOEF acted on that recommendation on 22 April 2026, gazetting the provisional duty for a four-month period (22 April – 21 August 2026) pending the KTC's final injury/dumping-margin determination, expected around July 2026.

Product scope — butyl acrylate (아크릴산 부틸 / 부틸 아크릴레이트), an ester of acrylic acid and butanol classified under HS subheading 2916.12. It is a feedstock for adhesives, acrylic paints/coatings, and ASA (acrylonitrile styrene acrylate) specialty resin.

Duty rates by supplier:

The all-others rate of 19.17% is used as the representative tariff_rate_pct for this action; the full producer-specific range (9.53–19.17%) is documented above.

Petitioner — LG Chem, the sole remaining Korean domestic producer of butyl acrylate, filed the petition in July 2025. LG Chem's own data showed Korean domestic sales volume of butyl acrylate down more than 30% and domestic demand down ~7.5% between 2021 and 2024, while Chinese import volume rose ~25% over the same period (even as import value fell ~17.5%, evidence of price-depressed dumped volume). LG Chem reportedly used this dataset to calculate the 19.17% dumping margin against Chinese suppliers.

Context — part of Korea's 2026 anti-dumping surge

This case is one of four active 2026 KTC chemical-sector investigations against China (alongside offset printing plates, PET resin, and solid sodium hydroxide) and sits within a broader wave: KTC public notices on anti-dumping cases roughly doubled year-on-year through mid-April 2026, with roughly 70% of cases targeting Chinese-origin products. Korean officials and trade press attribute the surge to record trade-remedy petition volume (13 applications in 2025, the highest since the KTC's 1987 founding) driven by low-priced Chinese exports displaced by protectionism elsewhere (notably the 2025 US Section 232 steel/aluminum escalation), pushing Chinese oversupply into open markets like Korea. This mirrors the same dynamic already filed for Korea's steel-sector AD wave (see 2026-04-16-korea-ktc-provisional-ad-chinese-zinc-coated-cold-rolled-steel), now extending into basic organic chemicals.

Downstream implications

• LG Chem — price-floor relief on its sole domestic butyl acrylate

line for the duration of the provisional duty; watch for margin recovery disclosed in Q2-Q3 2026 chemicals-segment results.

• Korean downstream buyers (adhesives, coatings, ASA-resin

producers) — input-cost normalization risk if LG Chem uses the duty to raise domestic prices toward the new import ceiling; no alternative domestic supplier exists, so downstream buyers have limited substitution options within Korea.

• Chinese producers (Taixing Sunke, Shanghai Huayi, Pinghu Petro)

— material loss of Korean market access at rates that, being provisional, could still be revised (up or down) at the KTC's final determination.

• Pattern watch — expect the KTC's three other pending 2026

chemical-sector China AD cases (offset printing plates, PET resin, solid sodium hydroxide) to reach the same KTC-preliminary → MOEF-provisional → KTC-final sequence within 2026; file each as it crosses the same two-stage gate.

Open questions

• Exact KTC final determination date and final duty rates (expected

~July 2026) — file as an amendment when published.

• Whether MOEF's 22 April 2026 gazette notice carries a distinct

notice number (고시 번호) citable as a more precise primary-source deep link; only the MOEF notices board could be confirmed at filing time.

• Whether the provisional period will be extended beyond 21 August

2026 if the KTC's final determination is delayed (as happened in the precedent Vietnam stainless-steel cold-rolled case).