OPINION AND ORDER

MUSGRAVE, Senior Judge:

This opinion addresses the Final Results of Redetermination Pursuant to Court Remand ("Redetermination") that concern the antidumping duty investigation on Certain Coated Paper from the PRC ("Final Determination").1 Familiarity with the prior opinion on the case, 38 CIT ___, 918 F.Supp.2d 1317 (2013), is here presumed.

Pursuant to the order of remand, the International Trade Administration, U.S. Department of Commerce ("Commerce") undertook to (1) calculate the value of certain inputs using only market economy purchase prices, (2) use the purchase prices from South Korea and Thailand for the inputs therefrom, (3) correct certain programming errors in the targeted dumping calculation, (4) reconsider the classification of certain sales of the Gold East Companies2 as export price sales, resulting in no change of that classification, and (5) employ average-to-average comparison methodology in the targeted dumping analysis after finding that, as a result of the revisions with respect to the remanded issues, that method adequately accounted for pricing differences.

Commerce contends the Redetermination complies with the remand order. Two issues remain in dispute here, however. The domestic industry petitioners3 argue that Commerce's original determinations in the Final Determination of not treating the reported input prices from Thailand and South Korea as market economy purchases and of using average-to-transaction methodology as the targeting-dumping remedy for the Gold East Companies were proper and correct. Responding, the plaintiffs argue the results of remand should be sustained as is. Considering those results and comments thereon, the court concludes remand is again required.

Discussion

I. Inputs from South Korea and Thailand

The issue concerning the claimed market economy purchase ("MEP") prices for the inputs from Thailand and South Korea was previously remanded because the record provided insufficient support for believing or suspecting the prices in question had been distorted by subsidies. See 38 CIT at ___, 918 F.Supp.2d at 1324; see also 19 U.S.C. § 1677b(c)(1) (2006); 19 C.F.R. § 351.408(c)(1) (2008). Commerce disagrees with the order either to reopen the record and make particularized findings to support the conclusion of distorted input prices or to reverse the decision not to use the input price data and concomitant recalculation of the margin. It opted for the latter under protest. Redetermination at 16.

Having reversed its prior decision, Commerce reiterates that if a country maintains broadly available, non-industry specific export subsidies, its practice has been to find the existence of such subsidies a sufficient reason to exclude the affected input from the factors of production values. Its stated position on not reopening the record is based on its inference of "the existence" of such subsidies, from which it presumes the relevant inputs to have benefitted, and it maintains it is "longstanding practice to not obtain further evidence or conduct a formal investigation to determine whether such prices are subsidized, but instead to base [the] decision only on information available to it at the time it makes its determination." Id. (bracketing added), referencing inter alia Notice of Final Determination of Sales at Less Than Fair Value and Negative Final Determination of Critical Circumstances: Certain Color Television Receivers From the People's Republic of China, 69 Fed. Reg. 20594 (Apr. 16, 2004), and accompanying I & D Memo ("CCTR") at comment 7.

The petitioners requested during remand that Commerce reopen the administrative record. Petitioners' Letter to the Department of Commerce dated July 26, 2013, Remand Public Document ("RPDoc") 1. Commerce declined. Commenting on the draft remand results, the petitioners raised the substance of Memorandum from the Office of Policy to DAS and Office Directors, "NME investigations: procedures for disregarding subsidized factor input prices" (Feb. 2002), which advised that all factor inputs from inter alia South Korea and Thailand should be disregarded. The petitioners pointed out that: (1) it has been Commerce's consistent position since the memorandum's publication to infer that the prices of inputs purchased from those countries are likely distorted; (2) Commerce has identified a number of subsidy programs that benefit exporters from Thailand, including the Royal Thai Government's Tax Coupon Program ("TCP") and the Investment Promotion Act ("IPA") ("in existence" they claim since 1977), as recently discussed in Commerce's 2013 determination on warmwater shrimp from Thailand, covering a period of investigation in 2011 that would have obviously post-dated the POI here4; (3) the TCP was specifically available for the type of input in question here, and the IPA identified producers of that input as a favored industry; and (4) the court has found that the agency's determination that a company supplying an NME producer was listed as approved for promotion by the Thai Board of Investment under the IPA constituted a showing "by specific and objective evidence" that there was "reason to believe or suspect" that the supplier received subsidies in Fuyao Glass Indus. Group Co. v. United States, 29 CIT 109, 117-18, 2005 WL 280437 (2005).5 See Petitioners' Comments on Prelim. Remand at 6-7, Remand Confidential Document ("RCDoc") 10; RPDoc 10.

The petitioners further criticize the remand results as simply a recalculation of the margin using the MEP values on remand. They argue that without any analysis of whether those values are the best available information leading to the calculation of the most accurate margin, Commerce has given the remand order an interpretation that renders it legally erroneous. Petitioners' Comments at 9, referencing Borlem S.A.-Empreedimentos Industriais v. United States, 13 CIT 231, 234, 710 F.Supp. 797, 799 (1989) (when issuing remand orders courts must be "mindful of the doctrine of primary jurisdiction" whose "central purpose ... is to permit courts to give effect to legislative intent underlying the established regulatory scheme by referring matters involving agency expertise back to the agency so that it may, in the first instance, pass upon the issue from its unique administrative perspective").6 More precisely, they contend that the record to date is devoid as to any information that would indicate the South Korean or Thai companies that supplied the Gold East Companies with inputs were not subsidized, that Commerce has not determined that the pricing data from these countries is the best available, that Fuyao Glass rejected this same approach, 30 CIT 165, 168-69, 2006 WL 345004 (2006), and that Commerce's attempt to distinguish Fuyao Glass on the basis that it ordered Commerce to "concur" or reopen the record, in contrast to the remand order in this case to "reverse" or reopen the record, does not render Fuyao Glass's finding of inadequate explanation inapplicable. Id. at 8-9.

On the argument that the record is devoid as to information that the inputs were not subsidized, the contention assumes the validity of Commerce's presumption that they were. On that aspect, the plaintiffs argue that the question as addressed by the court is that the record lacked positive evidence of subsidization. That characterization is not entirely accurate, however. Based on the standard pursuant to which Congress directed Commerce to operate, the question to be answered was whether there was positive evidence on the record for "the belief or suspicion of" subsidization relevant to the POI, a standard that requires sufficient (i.e., substantial) evidence on the record to give rise, prima facie, to that presumption.

On the argument that Commerce did not determine that the claimed MEP values represented the best information available, the argument has some merit,7 but on the more precise argument that the agency's interpretation of the remand order renders the order legally erroneous, the court does not fault an administrative attempt to follow a remand order's literal terms unless the intention thereby would be to produce a reversible result. Cf. Redetermination at 16 ("The Department does not believe that in this case the [c]ourt requires the agency to concur with its decision and thereby possibly undermine its options with respect to any potential appeal."), citing Viraj Group, Ltd. v. United States, 343 F.3d 1371 (Fed.Cir. 2003), & cf. 343 F.3d at 1376 (technicality of prevailing-party status would not preclude appeal by Commerce when it "adopted under protest a contrary position forced upon it by the court"). Commerce may have merely followed orders out along an arguable reach, but however that may be, remand results provided "under protest" are unhelpful to interested readership whenever the explanation on remand merely amounts to repetition of the agency's original position. Feedback, via remand results and comments thereon detailing any perceived deficiency in an opinion or concerning the overlying order itself, aids in reaching the correct result.

The petitioners' other implied points are well-taken. Regarding their subtle argument that the Redetermination's resistance to "reopening" the administrative record is an implicit contest over the legality of the prior order, it is true, as Commerce implies, that where an interested party bears the burden of creating an accurate record with respect to a particular fact, courts should "declin[e] to require reopening of the record, except in the most extraordinary circumstances." Bowman Transportation, Inc. v. Arkansas-Best Freight System, Inc., 419 U.S. 281, 296, 95 S.Ct. 438, 42 L.Ed.2d 447 (1974). See, e.g., Essar Steel Ltd. v. United States, 678 F.3d 1268, 1277-78 (Fed. Cir.2012) ("[t]he decision to reopen the record is best left to the agency"). That is deferentially appropriate. But while interested parties bear the burden of proffering information to support their case, the burden is on Commerce, not interested parties, to include in the record the prima facie "information available to it at the time" that it claims as providing the reasonable basis to believe or suspect the existence of distorted input prices.8 See H.R. Conf. Rep. No. 100-576 (1988) at 590-91, reprinted in 1988 U.S.C.C.A.N. 1547, 1623-24 ("the conferees do not intend for Commerce to conduct a formal investigation to ensure that such prices are not dumped or subsidized, but rather intend that Commerce base its decision on information generally available to it at that time") (italics added); see also Sichuan Changhong Electric Co., Ltd. v. United States, 30 CIT 1481, 1494-96 & n. 16, 460 F.Supp.2d 1338, 1350-52 & n. 16 (2006) (Commerce bears burden of providing specific and objective evidence for the record to support a belief or suspicion of distorted MEPs); cf. Essar Steel, 678 F.3d at 1277-78, referencing Borlem S.A.-Empreedimentos Industriais v. United States, 913 F.2d 933, 937 (Fed.Cir.1990) (upholding court order that International Trade Commission consider extra-record evidence on remand in antidumping injury investigation); cf. also Borlem, 913 F.2d at 940 (directive to reconsider in light of intervening factual correction "is no different from a reversal and remand for reconsideration because a fact relied on is unsupported by the evidence").

Necessarily, judicial remand in its own right "will compel the agency to reopen or reconsider its decision", Charles H. Koch, Jr. and Richard Murphy, 2 Admin. L. & Prac. § 5:71 (3d ed.), and as previously discussed, the administrative record was not found to provide sufficient support for the determination reached.9 The intention of the order of remand was only, if not more, to point out that reopening the record was one of two apparent consequences of a record that lacked the substantial evidence necessary to support the legal viability of the presumed fact of input price distortion. But given Commerce's position on (not) reopening the record on remand, as expressed in the Redetermination, at this point the court must consider whether the language of the remand order may have inadvertently engendered misinterpretation.

CCTR, supra, is referenced in the Redetermination as support for the proposition of not opening the record. That determination does not facially explain why inclusion in the record of the substantial, specific, and objective "information available to it at the time" that is necessary to show "the existence" during the POI of relevant "broadly available, non-industry specific export subsidies" from which input price distortion could properly be presumed is precluded.10 CCTR rather appears only to reiterate Commerce's general policy of excluding inputs from, inter alia, South Korea and Thailand "because of known, generally available, non-industry specific export programs in those countries" as stated in Commerce's 2002 memorandum on the subject. CCTR at comment 7 (italics added). But here, at least insofar as the court can discern, there is nothing apparent, e.g., a vested right, that would estop or preclude supplementation of the record with that level of substantial, specific, and objective "information available to [Commerce] at the time" that would be necessary to satisfy the judicial standard of review. For that matter, Commerce has, in fact, "reopened" the record. See infra.

Mere "belief or suspicion" is a thin reed to support a determination of input price distortion. Again: "in order for reasonable suspicion to exist[,] there must be `a particularized and objective basis for suspecting' the existence of certain proscribed behavior, taking into account the totality of the circumstances, the whole picture." China National Machinery, supra, 27 CIT at 266, 264 F.Supp.2d at 1239, quoting Al Tech Specialty Steel Corp. v. United States, 6 CIT 245, 247, 575 F.Supp. 1277, 1280 (1983), which discussed, inter alia, Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1, 88 S.Ct. 1868, 20 L.Ed.2d 889 (1968). Consequently, and in accordance with the substantial evidence standard of review, the first prong of the Fuyao Glass test requires specific and objective evidence showing that "subsidies" (or subsidization) of the industry in question in fact "existed". 29 CIT at 114. Detailed positive evidence of that existence — during the POI — of broadly-available, non-industry specific subsidies has been held to satisfy this prong, see CS Wind Vietnam Co., Ltd. v. United States, 38 CIT ___, ___, 971 F.Supp.2d 1271, 1292 (2014), as well as the substantial evidence standard of review, see Zhejiang Machinery, supra, 31 CIT at 164-71, 473 F.Supp.2d at 1370-76, but the "general policy" concerning "broadly available, non-industry specific subsidies" as outlined in Commerce's 2002 memorandum regarding, inter alia, Thailand and South Korea has been held "not [to] provide the court with the specific and objective evidence necessary for Commerce to meet its burden", because that memorandum includes only "general findings" thereon and "does not explain the findings in any way." Sichuan Changhong Electric, 30 CIT at 1494 n. 16, 460 F.Supp.2d at 1350 n. 16. This is so, because the agency's stated practice cannot be interpreted to amount to a presumption of law: in order to be held consistent with congressional intent to avoid using distorted factor prices, Commerce's general policy must be, and it has been, construed as amounting to a presumption of fact, i.e., "[a] type of rebuttable presumption that may be, but as a matter of law need not be, drawn from another established fact or group of facts".11

In this matter, Commerce again proceeded down its familiar path to prove the validity of the presumption, albeit in a rather cursory manner. In the original Final Determination, Commerce declared "the existence" of generally-available non-industry specific subsidy programs during the period of investigation to be a fact. See I & D Memo at comment 17. But given the review standard of substantial evidence (and precedent), the court could not accept such an ex-record appeal, to generalized official notice12 of knowledge of "the existence" of such subsidy programs, as substantial evidence to justify presuming therefrom that the input prices in question were distorted. Such an appeal falls short of being "somewhere between proof and simple recognition of a fact as so well accepted as to be beyond debate." See 2 Admin. L. & Prac. § 5:55. That continues to be the case (and law) at this point. Cf. CS Wind Vietnam, supra, 38 CIT at ___ n. 14, 971 F.Supp.2d at 1292 n. 14 ("Commerce must either abide by the standard set out in Fuyao Glass or propose another reasonable means of evaluating whether it has sufficient evidence to support a belief or suspicion that the market economy inputs in the particular case at hand were subsidized").

Commerce also maintains, in the original Final Determination as well as on remand, that in other proceedings it has found it appropriate to disregard input prices from South Korea and Thailand pursuant to its "longstanding" practice of disregarding surrogate values if it has reason to believe or suspect that the source data may be subsidized. I & D Memo at comment 17. That may well be true, but flat appeal to "the past" does not inherently explain the determination that is being made in the present. More precisely, the fact that Commerce has found it appropriate to disregard prices from Korea and Thailand in past determinations does not give rise to a valid inference of "the existence" during the POI of generally-available, non-industry specific subsidy programs that would be necessary to justify a belief or suspicion that the input prices in question were distorted at the time of the POI of this matter.13 Cf. Sichuan Changhong Electric, supra, 30 CIT at 1496, 460 F.Supp.2d at 1352 ("[i]t is simply not reasonable to assume that subsidy programs, once established, exist in perpetuity"). It thus behooves Commerce to relate a relevant and contemporaneous factual predicate to the particular period of investigation, not merely to avoid the appearance of ossification of administrative practice, but also as a necessary part of the particularized findings that will suffice for the purpose of the substantial evidence standard of review.

CS Wind, supra, 38 CIT ___, 971 F.Supp.2d 1271, is illustrative of that sufficiency. Concerning an administrative record that also encompassed input prices that Commerce had believed or suspected had been distorted by subsidies and that Commerce had analyzed along the similar path as the matter at bar (and that of many others), CS Wind reiterated that the test of Fuyao Glass is one reasonable method for evaluating the sufficiency of the evidence upon which Commerce bases its belief or suspicion that input prices are subsidized. After analyzing the record in relation to each of the three Fuyao Glass prongs (see supra note 5), CS Wind held Commerce's analysis satisfactory because of the relevancy, contemporaneity, and particularity of the referenced proceedings to the administrative record therein considered. 38 CIT at ___, 971 F.Supp.2d at 1292.

The parties have not had opportunity to provide input on CS Wind, but its analysis appears sound in its own right. The matter at bar, at least with respect to the Final Determination, differs from that case as to the lack of any asserted and analyzed contemporaneity in the referenced administrative determinations and demonstrated relevance to the POI to support the belief or suspicion that prices of the relevant inputs were distorted during the POI. It also lacks particularity or specificity on what are being claimed as the "broadly-available, non-industry specific export subsidies" from South Korea and Thailand. It may well be true that those countries maintained such subsidies during the period in question. But those facts were, and are, neither apparent nor inherent in the administrative record: it requires some primary source from which it could reasonably be concluded that such programs were in fact in existence and operable during the POI, with a degree of specificity in describing the relevant program(s), before the possibility of believing or suspecting that the relevant MEPs during the POI were likely distorted by such programs could even arise.14

In the final analysis, the court is not here persuaded that Commerce on remand has provided a legally correct result, as argued by the petitioners, not least because (its expressed position to the contrary notwithstanding) in the Redetermination Commerce has, in fact, supplemented the administrative record — with references to Fresh Garlic From the People's Republic of China: Final Results of Antidumping Duty Administrative Review; 2010-2011, 78 Fed.Reg. 36168 (June 17, 2013) (reviewing the Nov. 1, 2010 to Oct. 31, 2011 period) and accompanying I & D Memo at comment 8, and Certain Activated Carbon From the People's Republic of China: Final Results of Antidumping Duty Administrative Review; 2011-2012, 78 Fed.Reg. 70533 (Nov. 26, 2013) (reviewing the Apr. 1, 2011, through Mar. 31, 2012 period) and accompanying I & D Memo at comment 5, both of which were apparently undertaken after and covered periods subsequent to the POI. See Redetermination at 16. But beyond being claimed as support for the practice of inferring that all exporters from a country that "maintains" broadly available, non-industry specific export subsidies may be presumed to have benefitted from such subsidies, those determinations are unexplained, specifically whether they may legally provide the evidentiary sufficiency for excluding APP-China's declared MEP input prices from South Korea and Thailand. They are, however, apparent evidence of record and in apparent contradistinction to reversal on remand of the decision not to use the pricing data from South Korea and Thailand. Further remand is therefore required to more fully address the record as it stands, or as may yet be supplemented by other "information available to it at the time" as Commerce in its discretion may determine is appropriate (cf., e.g., RCDoc 10, supra), in accordance with the foregoing. Simply put, Commerce must reach and explain, with precision, whatever result the substantiality of the evidence compels.

II. Targeted Dumping Determination

The petitioners also challenge the Redetermination with respect to the targeted dumping methodology and remedy applied by Commerce. See 19 U.S.C. § 1677f1 (d)(1)(B) (2006); 19 C.F.R. § 351.414(f) (2008).

By way of background, it will be recalled that in the Final Determination Commerce applied its Nails test15 and found that APP-China's sales' prices had a pattern of pricing that differed significantly among U.S. customers for comparable merchandise during the POI. Specifically, the analysis found that targeted sales met both the "significant deviation test" threshold and the "gap test" threshold. See I & D Memo at comment 3. Consequently, in order to compute dumping margins for the Final Determination, instead of employing standard average-to-average ("A-A") comparison methodology, which would have concealed differences in pricing patterns between targeted and non-targeted groups, Commerce applied the average-to-transaction ("A-T") comparison methodology16 in accordance with 19 C.F.R. § 351.414(f)(1) (2008), albeit to all of APP-China's sales. But subsection (f)(2) of that regulation, as proclaimed at the time, provided that Commerce will also "normally" limit the A-T method to those sales that "constitute targeted dumping." The prior opinion held that Commerce's announced "interim final rule," without providing for advance notice and comment, had not properly withdrawn that subsection.17 38 CIT at ___, 918 F.Supp.2d at 1327. Thus, "[a]ssuming the finding of targeted dumping remains positive after reconsideration of other issues addressed in this opinion, Commerce must limit application of the targeted dumping remedy to targeted sales, or provide an adequate explanation as to why the situation is not a `normal' one before applying the remedy to all APP-China sales." Id. at ___, 918 F.Supp.2d at 1328.

After making the changes to the calculations in the Final Determination with respect to other issues addressed in the prior opinion, Commerce continued to find targeted dumping, in that APP-China's sales prices had a pattern of pricing that differed significantly among U.S. customers for comparable merchandise during the POI, and that the targeted sales met both the "significant deviation test" threshold and the "gap test" threshold. Redetermination at 14. However, Commerce declined to apply a targeted dumping remedy after finding that the weighted-average margin under both the A-A comparison methodology and the A-T methodology, as limited to the sales that were found to be targeted, is below the de minimis threshold. Id. Commerce thus18 applied the standard A-A methodology to all sales to determine the weighted-average dumping margin. Id. at 14-15.

In their comments on the draft remand results, the petitioners argued that failure to apply alternate targeted dumping methodology to all U.S. sales of the exports of subject merchandise by APP-China constitutes error. RCDoc 10 (Oct. 28, 2013) at 11 (comments on prelim. remand); RCDoc 13 (Nov. 18, 2013) at 7 ("Comments on Disclosure"). They urge that Commerce (re)consider and find APP-China's targeted dumping to be not normal. They here argue that in promulgating the targeted dumping regulation, Commerce noted that the Limiting Rule approach would not always be "limited" in application, because there may be situations in which targeted dumping by a firm is so pervasive that the A-T method becomes the benchmark for gauging the fairness of that firm's pricing practice. See Antidumping Duties; Countervailing Duties, 62 Fed.Reg. 27296, 27375 (May 19, 1997) (final rule) ("where a firm engages extensively in the practice of targeted dumping, the only adequate yardstick available to measure such pricing behavior may be the [A-T] methodology").

The petitioners also contend that notwithstanding whatever result Commerce reaches with regard to the first issue discussed above, supra, Commerce's current record consists of legally-relevant extensive, or "widespread" or "pervasive,"19 sales by APP-China in terms of percentage volume and value in their own right and also when examined using "Cohen's d" testing, which as used by Commerce measures the extent of price differentiation in U.S. sales.20 See Petitioners' Comments on Disclosure (output listing, p. 270), RPDoc 12, RCDoc 13 (memorandum to file). They claim their results show that if the alternate methodology were applied only to sales identified by the Cohen's d test, or even to all sales, the result would be a non-de minimis margin. See id. (output listing, p. 292). Thus they argue that the alternate methodology should be applied to all of APP-China's sales. See id. at 7.

Since the other issue being remanded may impact the calculations employed for the targeted dumping analysis, the court need not opine further at this point, but upon remand Commerce is specifically requested to consider and address in greater detail the petitioners' points as raised in their confidential comments filed with the court.

Conclusion

This matter is hereby remanded for further proceedings not inconsistent with the foregoing. The finalized results thereof shall be due October 1, 2014; comment briefs for the court on those results to be filed October 31, 2014; and rebuttal commentary by November 17, 2014.

So ordered.