China Appeals WTO Steel Ruling

China has decided to appeal a decision made on June 15 by the World Trade Organization (WTO) which found that China had imposed illegal anti-dumping duties on U.S. electrical steel imports.

The decision by China to fight the WTO's findings from June 15 concerns "certain issues of law and legal interpretation," a WTO statement said.

The dispute dates back to September 2010 when Washington accused China of breaching trade rules by not providing sufficient evidence for imposing duties.

The WTO panel tasked with investigating the alleged abuses found that Chinese authorities had "improperly resorted to facts available in calculating the dumping and subsidy rates" in certain cases, and "that the manner in which (China) applied facts available was inconsistent" with trade rules.

The WTO also agreed with U.S. claims that China "did not comply with the 'objective examination' and 'positive evidence' requirements" in its analysis of the effect that U.S. imports of grain-oriented flat-rolled electrical steel were having on its market.

Copyright Agence France-Presse, 2012