WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A U.S. trade panel voted Friday to allow a Commerce Department investigation into charges Mexico and China are selling steel factory furnace bricks in the United States at unfairly low prices.

The U.S. International Trade Commission decided there was a reasonable indication that U.S. industry had been materially injured, or threatened with material injury, by imports of carbon magnesia bricks from the two countries.

Resco Products, a privately owned company based in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, filed the case in July. It is the latest in a string of complaints brought by U.S. manufacturers against the pricing practices of their competitors in China. Resco claims China unfairly subsidizes its brickmakers.

Resco has asked that anti-dumping duties ranging from 112 percent to 349 percent be placed on the bricks from China and additional duties imposed to offset alleged government subsidies.

The company wants anti-dumping duties ranging from 153 percent to 295 percent on the bricks from Mexico.

Last year, the United States imported more than $50 million of the bricks from China and about $8 million from Mexico.
Read All Comments

The Commerce Department will make a preliminary decision on the subsidy complaint against China in October and on the dumping charges against both countries in January.