— the product produced and sold in the Union by the Union industry.

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

(113) Several interested parties claimed that structural timber screws should be excluded from the product scope.

(114) Two exporting producers and two importers (11) argued that structural timber screws had similar characteristics and end uses as coach screws (not covered by the product scope) and that they were merely derivative product types from the latter, with improved mechanical performance and considered as an alternative to coach screws. They claimed that structural timber screws were exclusively used in timber constructions and were not interchangeable with other fasteners, while they were fully interchangeable with traditional coach screws. They were made to customer specific requirements and needed a European Technical Assessment (‘ETA’) certification to be marketed in the Union. Furthermore, they are produced in a specific production process, using different raw materials (i.e. higher quality steel) with specific treatment and machinery and therefore have higher costs and prices.

(115) One of the above exporting producers referring to the anti-dumping measures imposed on imports of certain aluminium road wheels (12) suggested that introducing a system of monitoring would mitigate any risk of circumvention when excluding structural timber screws from the product scope. The same exporting producer claimed that, should the Commission not exclude structural timber screws from the product scope, findings with regard to injury and causation should be made separately for these product types.

(116) All above parties claimed that the Union industry did not produce structural timber screws in sufficient quantities to satisfy the demand on the Union market, and there were also only a limited number of exporting producers in China that supplied structural timber screws.

(117) Likewise, the European Consortium of Anchor Producers (‘ECAP’) claimed that screws for use in timber constructions replacing coach screws, and thus for assembling heavy woodworks, should be excluded from the product scope as they have similar technical, chemical and physical characteristics and similar end-uses than coach screws.

(118) EIFI disagreed with these claims arguing that there would not be any objective criteria to distinguish structural timber screws from other fasteners.

(119) The Commission considered that structural timber screws do not fall under any specific product standard and cannot be distinguished from other wood screws (13) falling within the product scope. The investigation also revealed that at least some of the described special features of structural timber screws can also be found in fasteners falling within the product scope. The Commission also considered that the CE markings and ETA certification merely confirm that timber screws may be non-standard fasteners, but this fact alone does not justify their exclusion from the product scope. Therefore, these claims were rejected.