China slams EU’s latest anti-dumping duties on Chinese steel products, tires

The Chinese Ministry of Commerce (MOFCOM) last Friday slammed decisions from the EU to impose anti-dumping duties of up to 28.5 percent on certain corrosion-resistant steels from China and to launch a probe into truck tires from China, calling the EU's decision "groundless."

The European Commission (EC), the EU's executive arm, announced on Friday that it would launch an anti-dumping investigation into Chinese truck tire products. Last Wednesday, the EC said that after an eight-month investigation, it found that the products benefited from unfair subsidies.

Anti-dumping duties on corrosion resistant steels were necessary to help producers in at least 15 member countries in the EU with over 8,000 employees in total, according to a statement posted on the website of the EU's Official Journal last Wednesday.

"It was provisionally concluded that the imposition of measures would contribute to the recovery of [EU] industry by allowing price increases, enabling the industry as a whole to return to a profitable situation," the statement said.

"On balance, the commission concludes at this stage of the investigation that there were no compelling reasons to conclude that it would not be in the union's interest to impose provisional measures on imports of corrosion resistant steel products originating in China," it said.

The new EU import duties range from 17.2 percent to 28.5 percent, and will affect Hebei Iron and Steel Group, Shagang Group, Shougang Group and some other Chinese firms.

The companies have 25 days to challenge the EU decision at a hearing.

Wang Hejun, head of MOFCOM's trade remedy and investigation bureau, said in a statement that the EU was continuing to use the unfair and unreasonable "surrogate country approach" in the investigation, which resulted in artificially determined high anti-dumping duties for Chinese products and undermined Chinese firms' interests.

Earlier this year, the US halted its investigation into China's truck tire product exports as it found they had caused no harm to its domestic manufacturers.

"Chinese and EU companies have conducted close cooperation in technology development and marketing of tire products. Besides, many EU tire companies have established plants and invested in China, importing Chinese-made products, which proves the recognition of EU buyers toward the quality of these products," Wang noted.

Wang further added that "European industries' accusations about China dumping products are groundless" and said that the EU could not provide any evidence that Chinese products have caused damage to European industries.

Wang also said that the Chinese government would pay close attention to these matters and prepare to protect the legal rights of Chinese companies.