A European expert said on Thursday that recent anti-dumping investigations against China by the European Commission are "a type of trade protectionism."

Stuart Newman, legal advisor for the Foreign Trade Association representing EU importers, told Xinhua that the recent anti-dumping investigations against China are "a way of protecting manufacturers within Europe."

He strongly recommended that the EC make the investigations more transparent.

In the past three weeks, the EC has launched investigations against China over steel wire rods, seamless pipes, sodium gluconate, and road wheels.

"We are disappointed that anti-dumping investigations are on the increase, particularly because countries at the G20 summit came out and said that they would guard against any types of trade protectionism," Newman said.

"When we experience a financial crisis, we can assume there will be more requests for anti-dumping investigations from manufacturers," he said.

The investigations do not automatically result in high duties for imports in the long run, Newman said, but they do increase the cost of imports and expenses for consumers.

"Although companies may not increase the prices of their products immediately, they have to swallow the cost, reducing staff and imports," Newman said.

Newman used an anti-dumping investigation on footwear against China in October 2006 as an example. He said that after most Chinese companies involved in the investigation were levied duties as high as 16.5 percent, the price of footwear in Europe rose and choices for consumers were reduced.

Newman noted, just as he said in a report to the European Commission, that resorting to trade measures in order to protect European manufacturers that have been slow to adapt to the global marketplace "is not legitimate."

"Imposing damaging duties on EU importers and retailers and ultimately the consumers in order to compensate those manufacturers is not the answer," Newman said.

Newman strongly recommended that the EC reform its trade defense instruments, including increasing the transparency of its anti-dumping investigations.

"In the EU at least, the words 'transparency' and 'anti-dumping' do not sit comfortably side by side," he said.

Although anti-dumping regulations state that the EC "shall make the full text of the written complaint available upon request to other interested parties involved," Newman said the regulations also permit the complainant to submit a version that has confidential material removed.

"The result is that frequently the information contained in complaints is completely inadequate for the purpose of defending a case," Newman said.

Despite flaws with the investigations, Newman suggested the best thing that Chinese companies can do is to cooperate with the EC as much as possible. He said that is because the commission needs information to make a conclusion.

Chinese companies also need to coordinate with their importers, he said.

(Xinhua News Agency August 21, 2009)