The EC evaluates measures to mitigate accept China as a market economy – Yahoo Finance Spain

Brussels, 3 February (EFE) .- The European Commission (EC) announced today that studies “mitigation measures” if you finally decide to grant China’s market economy status, which would change the way the EU calculates anti-dumping duties to defend its producers against unfair competition from Chinese imports.

the EU executive considers the possibility to maturity in December this year the deadline for grant China this status, according to the commitments made when Beijing joined fifteen years ago to the World Trade Organization (WTO), says a briefing note that the EC has spread at twenty and the European Parliament this week and made public today.

this means that the European Union (EU), from December, should change its treatment of China in anti-dumping investigations on unfair trade.

currently the EU has 52 anti-dumping measures in force against China, covering 1.38% of imports from that country.

According to WTO rules, the EU can impose anti-dumping duties on products from third countries if an investigation shows that enter the European market at lower than production and thereby harm the Community industry.

prices and costs in an economy “no market “are artificially low and therefore, do not reflect normal market forces.

Thus, for non-market economy domestic prices are not used as a benchmark to compare the export prices, and instead the WTO rules allow you to use data from an “analogue country” with the status of market economy to do the math.

According to the document released today by the EC, which has it took into account the preliminary results of a report by an external consultant and “intensive contacts” with twenty-eight, the European Parliament and various stakeholders, there are three procedural options that analyzes Brussels.

This is no modifications to European legislation, remove China from the list of countries not considered market economies “without any conditions”, or remove the Asian country from that list while introducing at the same time, “mitigation measures”.

the EC now proposes to continue its assessment of whether you decide to change your treatment to China in anti-dumping December onwards investigations and, if so, how.

this will take a study of the economic impact on employment and which could have the decision.

the European industry has expressed concern to the EC by the possibility to grant China such status, especially the steel industry who suffers the consequences of global overproduction and low-cost imports from that country.

the Commission, which addressed this issue in January and will treat the middle of the year, has ensured that remains committed to maintaining strong anti-dumping measures to protect European industry from unfair trade.