Brussels, 10/02/2016 (Agence Europe) - On Wednesday 10 February, the European Commission announced the opening of the online public consultation with regard to the methods used in the EU's anti-dumping procedures for imports from China that benefit from dumping.
The question is whether, and how, the EU should treat China as a market economy in its anti-dumping investigations once certain arrangements in China's accession protocol to the WTO have expired. These arrangements relate to how China is treated in its trading partners' anti-dumping investigations.
Between 2001 and 2016, these arrangements gave China's trading partners the right to use a method of calculation that was advantageous for proving the existence of dumping (by treating China as a non-market economy) and setting high anti-dumping duties that were therefore protective.
The online consultation, which will be open for six weeks, asks interested parties to give their opinion on the different options proposed by the Commission (see EUROPE 11482).
Three options are on the table: (1) not to make any change in the EU's anti-dumping legislation once the WTO protocol arrangements expire - in other words, keeping China on the list of non-market economies; (2) to remove China from the list of non-market economies unconditionally; (3) to remove China from the list of non-market economies, but while introducing mitigation measures by strengthening the EU's anti-dumping arsenal.
The Commission says that the public consultation is part of an in-depth impact study that will include an in-depth study of the economic effects of any possible change agreed by the member states, with particular emphasis on jobs.
The decision to conduct an impact assessment on changing how China is treated in anti-dumping investigations is the result of a policy debate within the college of commissioners on 13 January. The college will return to this issue in the summer, it states.
The online consultation is available at: http://goo.gl/b6zqBL . (Original version in French by Emmanuel Hagry)