The European Commission presented new anti-dumping measures on Wednesday (9 November) that are mainly aimed at countering Chinese steel imports.
The commission wants to change the way it calculates dumping when products come from a country where the economy is distorted because of state intervention.
According to the proposal, the EU will scrap the usual distinction made between countries with a market economy status (MES) and countries which are not recognised as such. It proposes treating all members of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) in the same way.
So the EU will continue to impose anti-dumping duties on products from WTO countries when it is proved that these products enter the EU at dumped prices.
It will also continue to apply the standard rules by which dumping is calculated by comparing the price of an imported product with its domestic price in the exporting country.
But when the state intervenes in a country’s domestic market, the EU will also compare the price of a product imported to the EU with its price on another comparable market – the US, for example. Until now that methodology was applied only to non-market economy countries.
This country-neutral system will allow the EU to face Chinese cheap imports independently of the communist-run country’s status inside the WTO.
China says it is entitled to get the MES at the end of this year, 15 years after it joined the WTO.
Full article: EU seeks to strengthen measures on Chinese dumping (EUobserver)
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