(Yicai) July 24 -- Linglong Tyre said it has received a USD56.1 million anti-dumping tax refund from the US authorities for its factory in Thailand, which is equal to more than a 10th of the Chinese tiremaker’s net profit last year.

The refund -- USD49.1 million in principal and USD6.9 million in interest -- will be added to this year’s earnings, the Yantai-based company announced late yesterday.

Linglong Tyre reported a net profit of CNY1.4 billion (USD192.4 million) on revenue of CNY20.2 billion (USD2.8 billion) last year, with around 47 percent coming from overseas markets.

The US Department of Commerce opened an anti-dumping duty investigation into passenger vehicle and light truck tires from Thailand at the end of June 2020, putting a 21 percent anti-dumping tax on products from Linglong Tyre's plant in the country. But the department's final ruling in its annual administrative review issued in January slashed the rate to 4.5 percent.

The returned funds will enhance the market competitiveness of tires produced at the Thai plant, the company pointed out.

Besides the Thai factory, which can turn out 17 million high-performance radial tires a year, Linglong has five domestic plants and one in Serbia. The company made 79.1 million tires last year.

Shares of Linglong Tyre [SHA: 601966] ended little changed in Shanghai today, closing 0.1 percent lower at CNY16.51 (USD2.27) apiece after jumping by as much as 3.1 percent in the morning trading session. The Shanghai Composite Index gave back 0.5 percent.

Editor: Martin Kadiev