The European Union (EU) has notified the World Trade Organization (WTO) of a request for consultations with China on the latter's anti-dumping duties (ADs) on the imports of certain high-performance stainless steel seamless tubes (HP-SSST) from Europe.

The EU believes the anti-dumping duties are incompatible with WTO law, both on procedural and on substantive grounds. WTO consultations will give the EU and China the opportunity to find a negotiated solution, but, if the consultations are not successful, after 60 days the EU can ask the WTO to establish a dispute settlement panel to rule on the case.

It was stated that the duties of 9.7 percent to 11.1 percent imposed on European products are significantly hampering access to the Chinese market.

It was on November 8 last year that China confirmed its earlier provisional decision and imposed definitive anti-dumping duties on certain HP-SSST imported from the EU and Japan. The products are used mainly in superheaters and reheaters of supercritical or ultra-supercritical boilers in power stations.

Japan already requested consultations with China on December 20, 2012. Those discussions did not, however, succeed in resolving the dispute and a panel has been established between Japan and China following a meeting of the Dispute Settlement Body on May 24, 2013.

With regard to the EU notification, a Chinese Ministry of Commerce (MOFCOM) spokesman has confirmed that China has received the request for consultations, and has merely said that it will be dealt with it in accordance with the rules of the WTO dispute settlement mechanism.

However, the developing steel dispute will only add to the difficulties currently being seen in EU-China trade relations, where there were increasingly acrimonious conversations on the provisional ADs imposed by the European Commission earlier this month on Chinese exports of solar products into the EU, swiftly followed by an announcement by MOFCOM of AD and anti-subsidy investigations into EU wine exports into China. China is, since November last year, also investigating imports of solar-grade polysilicon from the EU.

Brussels, 17 June 2013

By Ulrika Lomas

Source: Tax-News.com