EU asks WTO to examine China’s AD duty on certain European stainless steel pipe

The European Commission (EC) has announced that the European Union has requested the World Trade Organization (WTO) to rule over a dispute concerning Chinese anti-dumping (AD) duties imposed on imports of high-performance stainless steel seamless tubes (HP-SSST) from the EU.
 
The EU believes the Chinese anti-dumping duties are incompatible with WTO law, both on procedural and on substantive grounds. At the EU's request, consultations were held on July 17-18, 2013 to resolve the dispute. However, they did not satisfy the EU's concerns about the WTO-incompatibility of the Chinese measures.
 
The EU's request for the establishment of a WTO panel will be discussed for the first time at the meeting of the WTO Dispute Settlement Body (DSB) of August 30, 2013. At that meeting China can, under the dispute settlement rules of the WTO, object to the establishment of the panel. If the EU tables the issue again at the following DSB meeting, China will be unable to block the request and, consequently, the panel would be established.
 
According to the EC, EU exports of the abovementioned tubes to China were worth some €90 million in 2009, but fell to under €20 million around the time when China imposed definitive anti-dumping duties in November 2012. Since then, the duties of 9.7 percent to 11.1 percent imposed on imports of steel tubes from the EU have been significantly hampering access to the Chinese market.
 
As SteelOrbis previously reported, in May this year the WTO agreed to Japan's request to establish a panel regarding China's decision to impose an anti-dumping duty on high-performance stainless steel seamless tubes imported from Japan.