Brussels, 13/05/2003 (Agence Europe) - During the presentation to Tuesday's Competitiveness Council of the Commission's seventh report on the state of world shipbuilding, French Industry Minister, Nicole Fontaine, expressed her concern for the delay in this dossier. She particularly bemoaned the fact that the Commission had not presented the report from its additional enquiry into the damage suffered by European shipyards in the liquid natural gas (LNG) transportation sector until the end of March, later than it had undertaken to do so. The Minister said that, given the very short period of validity of the temporary defence mechanism put in place to counter the effects of dumping by South-Korean naval yards (it expires in March 2004), "this delay (…) will prove greatly injurious to European companies". Ms Fontaine asked the Commission to do its best to ensure that the application of the mechanism to methane carriers was up and running as quickly as possible. She also invited it to think about extending the period of validity of the mechanism, and to extend temporary aid to methane carriers. Lastly, stating the view that there is no justification today of continuing commitments undertaken with the Republic of Korea since 1999, the Minister called upon the Commission formally and as quickly as possibly to start dispute proceedings against Korean practises at the WTO, and has asked for a special group to be set up for this.