China says EU anti-dumping methodology violates WTO rules

The European Union's new anti-dumping regulations violate World Trade Organization (WTO) rules, China's Ministry of Commerce has said.

The EU on Tuesday officially released rules that remove the former distinction between "market and non-market economies" for calculating dumping.

Instead, the rules require proving of the existence of "significant market distortion" between a product's sale price and its production cost.

The notion of "significant market distortion" makes it possible for the EU to take the surrogate country approach, which allows using prices and production costs in a third country or on the international market to calculate the value of products from the exporting country.

China hopes the EU will strictly abide by WTO rules and fulfill its duties in a well-intentioned and comprehensive way, the ministry said in a statement.

"Only by safeguarding the authority of multilateral trade systems can the common interests of all countries be served," the statement said.

The ministry said the new methodology lacks support from WTO rules and weakens the authority of the WTO anti-dumping legal system. There is no such concept of "significant market distortion" in WTO rules, the statement continued.

China reserves its rights under the WTO dispute settlement mechanism and will take necessary measures to protect its legitimate interests, the ministry said.

(CGTN)