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Federal Register / Vol. 62, No. 28 / Tuesday, February 11, 1997 / Notices617948833, 48835 (September 20, 1993)(Lock Washers); and Saccharin from thePRC, 59 FR 58818 (November 15, 1994)(Saccharin)). Guizhou Machinery et al.add that the Indian import values thatthe Department used in the preliminaryresults are nearly three times the valueof Indian export prices of the same steeland state that this constitutes furtherevidence that the import values areaberrational.With respect to the appropriatealternative to Indian import values,Guizhou Machinery et al. support EastSea’s proposed surrogate value of $673per metric ton, based on an average ofU.S., E.U., and Japanese importstatistics, as the best alternative value.Guizhou Machinery et al. state that thisvalue is in accord with the Department’spractice of basing factor values onmultiple sources when necessary and ispreferable to using data from othercountries listed on the Department’sSurrogate Country SelectionMemorandum because none of thesecountries is a significant producer ofbearings.Petitioner contends that Respondents’arguments that the value of steel inIndian import category 7228.30.19 usedin the preliminary results far exceedsthe value of steel used to manufactureTRBs are incorrect. Petitioner maintainsthat this category is the best valuationsource for the steel used to producecups and cones if the Departmentdetermines not to use the SKF Reportfor this purpose (see Comment 3).Petitioner states that Indian data ispreferable to the U.S./E.U./Japanaverage import value proposed byRespondents because India meets thestatutory criteria for factor valuation,i.e., it is a comparable economy to thePRC and is a significant producer ofcomparable merchandise (citing section773(c) of the Act). Petitioner claims thatthe use of a developed-country average,as suggested by Respondents, wouldviolate the statute and adds that theDepartment previously rejected the useof E.U. statistics for valuation purposesin the 1989–90 review of this order.Petitioner adds that Respondents’analysis of Japanese import statistics isbased on a questionable reading ofJapanese HTS classifications.With respect to the cases thatRespondents cite in support of theirposition that their proposal is in accordwith Department practice regardingseeking alternative valuation sourceswhere the primary surrogate value isaberrational, Petitioner responds that, inthose cases, unlike this proceeding, theDepartment had a plausible reason todeviate from its preferred practicebecause the preferred data wereunsupported by reliable evidence andwere contradicted by consistentinformation from other sources, whichusually included another surrogate.Petitioner states that the casesRespondents cite may be distinguishedfrom the present review as follows: (1)in Coumarin, the rejected Indian sourceconflicted with other sources withinIndia; (2) in Silicon Carbide, theDepartment did not use the preferreddata because they either pertained tofurther-processed products or involveda small tonnage priced too high to beconsidered reasonable; (3) in DisposableLighters, the Department used exportsfrom India instead of imports becauseimports were not significant; (4) inPencils, the Department used importsfrom a secondary surrogate instead ofthe primary surrogate (India) becausethe Indian values were inconsistentwith both Pakistani values and valuesprovided in the petition; (5) in LockWashers, the Indian values theDepartment rejected were over 1,000percent higher than the comparisonvalues; (6) in Drawer Slides, the Indianvalues the Department rejected wereseveral times higher than thecomparison values; (7) in Saccharin, theDepartment used an average of exportstatistics from five developed countriesbecause it had difficulty finding anappropriate surrogate; (8) in HandTools, the Department rejected Indianimport values in favor of Indonesianand U.S. values because imports intoIndia were not significant; (9) inFurfuryl Alcohol, the Departmentrejected the primary surrogate’s(Indonesia) import data in favor ofexport data from the same surrogate;and (10) in Steel Pipe, the Departmentexcluded certain imports that wereclearly of a higher quality than the steelused by Respondent in that case.Petitioner adds that East Sea’salternative proposal, that, if theDepartment continues to use Indianimport statistics it should exclude allindividual import values greater than$1,421, is incorrect because it focusesonly on individual import values thatmay be aberrationally high whileignoring those values that may beaberrationally low.Department PositionWe agree with East Sea and GuizhouMachinery et al. None of the eight-digittariff categories within the Indian7228.30 steel group correspondsspecifically to bearing-quality steel usedto manufacture cups and cones, and wedo not agree with Petitioner that the bestalternative, aside from valuing steelusing the SKF Report, is to use theeight-digit ‘‘others’’ category(7228.30.19) within this group. Instead,we have determined that the use ofIndian import data is not appropriate tovalue steel used to produce cups andcones in this case because we are unableto isolate an Indian import value forbearing-quality steel and, moreimportantly, the steel values in theIndian import data are not reliable, asfurther discussed below.As in TRBs IV–VI and TRBs VII, wehave examined each of the eight-digitcategories within the Indian 7228.30group and have found that, althoughbearing-quality steel used tomanufacture cups and cones is mostlikely contained within this basketcategory, there is no eight-digit subcategorythat is reasonably specific tothis type of steel. We eliminated thespecific categories of alloy steel that areclearly not bearing-quality steel asfollows. Under the Indian tariff system,bearing-quality steel used tomanufacture cups and cones iscontained within the broad category7228.30 (Other Bars & Rods, Hot-Rolled,Hot-Drawn & Extruded). However, noneof the named sub-categories of thisgrouping (7228.30.01—bright bars ofalloy tool steel; 7228.30.09—bright barsof other steel; 7228.30.12—bars and rodsof spring steel; and 7228.30.14—barsand rods of tool and die steel) containssteel used in the production of subjectmerchandise. This leaves an ‘‘others’’category of steel, 7228.30.19. However,we have no information concerningwhat this category contains, and none ofthe parties in this proceeding hassuggested that this category specificallyisolates bearing-quality steel. Further,the value of steel in this eight-digitresidual category is greater than thevalue of the general six-digit basketcategory (7228.30) which, in turn, isvalued too high to be considered areliable indicator of the price of bearingqualitysteel, as shown below.Where questions have been raisedabout PI with respect to particularmaterial input prices in a chosensurrogate country, it is the Department’sresponsibility to examine that PI. SeeDrawer Slides at 54475–76, CasedPencils, 59 FR 55633, 55629 (1994),TRBs IV–VI at 65531, and TRBs VII.Because all parties raised questionsabout the validity of the Indian importdata used to value cups and cones in thepreliminary results, we compared thevalue of Indian imports in category7228.30 with the only record source thatspecifically isolates bearing-quality steelused to manufacture cups and cones:U.S. import data regarding tariffcategory 7228.20.30 (‘‘bearing-qualitysteel’’). We found that, for the timeperiod covered by the POR, the value of