The World Trade Organization (WTO) has confirmed the creation of two panels to mediate
on cases relating to Chinese anti-dumping and countervailing duties, and a third
to examine Canadian support to local manufacturers of clean-tech products in cases
brought by the European Union and Japan.
The creation of the first panel relates to Chinese anti-dumping duties on X-ray
security inspection equipment from the European Union. Following an investigation,
China decided to impose anti-dumping duties ranging from 33.5% to 71.8% on imports
of x-ray security inspection equipment from the EU from January 23, 2011 for a period
of five years.
In a preliminary response to the EU's second panel request on the matter, China said it believed that relevant measures
at issue were fully consistent with the WTO Anti-dumping Agreement. China added
that both the anti-dumping investigation and measures were based on solid facts
and evidence.
The second panel relates to a request brought by the United States to examine
China's anti-dumping and countervailing measures on US chicken broiler products.
The United States said that China’s dumping and subsidy determinations appeared
to be inconsistent with China’s obligations under the Anti-dumping Agreement.
The US added that its concerns related to every phase of China’s investigation.
In September 2011, the US government said these duties were doing significant
damage to its domestic industry. It said that before the imposition of these duties,
the United States was China’s largest chicken broiler products supplier with
over 600,000 metric tons of broiler products exported in 2009. Since the duties
have come into force, US exports to China are down 90%. Annual losses of USD1bn
in sales to China are anticipated by US industry.
China has imposed anti-dumping duties ranging from 50.3% to 53.4% on
US exporters of chicken products, and set an “all others” rate of 105.4%. In the countervailing
duty investigation, China imposed countervailing duties of between 4% and 12.5%
for the participating US producers and exporters and an “all others” rate of
30.3%.
The EU said that it would follow this proceeding very closely as a third party,
since it has expressed similar concerns.
The creation of the third panel relates to Japan and the European Union's challenge
to Canadian province Ottawa's Green Energy act, which provides concessionary
treatment of providers of green energy products and services that meet local
content requirements. To qualify for the concessionary treatment, solar projects
must have at least 40% of their initial development contributed to by local
producers or service providers, and wind energy 25%. Japan and the European
Union agreed to merge their appeals.
The WTO, also adopted at its January 20, 2012 meeting the panel and Appellate Body reports which reviewed the Philippines’ tax regime
on distilled spirits.
LAWANDTAX-NEWS.COM
