09/12/05 Apple juice imports; apple aid

Washington Ag September 12, 2005 The U.S. Department of Commerce has made the first step in continuing import duties on non-frozen apple juice concentrate from China by deciding that exporters there are expected to continue selling products in the U.S. at an unfair price if an anti-dumping order is revoked. That is a victory for domestic concentrate producers like Tree Top and U.S. apple growers. Final action on extending the anti-dumping order now rests with the International Trade Commission which must determine that the Chinese dumping harms the domestic concentrate industry. The anti-dumping order has been under going a required five-year review Members of Washington's tree fruit industry have combined resources to assist hurricane Katrina victims by contributing truckloads of apples. At least two truckloads were already nourishing people last week and Jennifer Witherbee of the Washington Apple Education Foundation says two more truckloads left Friday. Witherbee: "And those will be distributed by volunteers at a school in Mississippi. The school was also impacted by the hurricane but they do have the facilities to store the produce and distribute it. And they have been feeding about 20-thousand people a day at the school." The apples of various varieties were from many individual warehouses. I'm Bob Hoff.