China says new EU anti-dumping methodology violates WTO rules

BEIJING, Dec. 20 (Xinhua) -- China's Ministry of Commerce (MOC) said Wednesday the European Union's new anti-dumping methodology violates World Trade Organization (WTO) rules.

China hopes the EU will strictly abide by WTO rules and fulfill its duties in a well-intentioned and comprehensive way, the MOC said in a statement.

"Only by safeguarding the authority of multi-lateral trade systems can the common interests of all countries be served," the statement said.

The EU on Tuesday officially released new anti-dumping rules that remove the former distinction between "market and non-market economies" for calculating dumping. Instead, the rules require proving the existence of a "significant market distortion" between a product's sale price and its production cost.

The notion of "significant market distortion" makes it possible for the EU to take the surrogate country approach, which allows using prices and production costs in a third country or on the international market to calculate the value of products from the exporting country.

The MOC said the new methodology lacks support from WTO rules and weakens the authority of the WTO anti-dumping legal system, noting that there is no such concept of "significant market distortion" in WTO rules.

China reserves its rights under the WTO dispute settlement mechanism and will take necessary measures to protect its legitimate interests, the MOC said. Enditem