Brussels, 02/10/2000 (Agence Europe) - The "intense discussions" that took place at the end of last week between the European Commission and Korean experts did not enable to find a solution to the problem, raised by the European Union, of the setting of unfairly low prices by Korean ship yards, indicated a Commission Communiqué. The Communiqué specifies that the discussion had covered the possibility that the Korea Exim Bank introduce a review mechanism of export contracts, so as to check if the prices practices by the Korean shipbuilders respect the "normal value" as defined by the WTO Anti-Dumping agreement, but Korea had not accepted the basic principal according to which the prices should cover all the costs (the implementation of this principal would have lead to a significant rise in prices).
The Commission indicted that, in mid-September, the Commission anti-dumping experts had made exceptional on the spot visits to two large Korean yards, so as to verify if the prices applied in particular contracts covered all the costs. "Unfortunately, citing reasons of commercial confidentiality, one company was not prepared to give specific information" and to "reveal its real costs", which prevented the Commission from drawing clear conclusions in this affair, indicates the Communiqué. The Commission thus notes that Korea has not fulfilled the undertakings it had made in terms of transparency, and that it refusal to accept the proposed mechanism prevented the reaching of the major aim of a EU-Korea bilateral agreement, that is to say a stabilisation of the market thanks to the price level of these boats. The Commission will report to the Council and propose alternative solutions, without excluding that of a commercial action within the WTO (which presupposed a complaint by European shipyards).