China urged United States to take a fair approach in tackling
trading problems after the United States made an anti-dumping
ruling on Chinese-made TV sets.
The US Commerce Department on Monday announced in a preliminary
ruling anti-dumping duties of 27.94 to 78.45 percent on imported
TVs from China.
The rate is the dumping margin based on the comparison of real
prices and normal prices.
In the same ruling, however, the department dismissed a dumping
complaint against a Malaysian television set exporter.
The department said it plans to hand out its final ruling on
April 12 next year.
The Chinese Ministry of Commerce, showing great concern over the
decision, said the ruling was not based on facts.
Foreign Ministry spokesman Liu Jianchao said yesterday that the
trade disputes should be properly tackled through equal
consultation so as to ensure the sound development of the bilateral
ties.
And the official from the Bureau of Fair Trade for Import and
Export of the Chinese Ministry of Commerce said that Chinese TV
makers imported raw materials from Japan and United States and then
exported the TV sets back to United States, in which they earn the
processing fees.
"The high dumping margin ruled by United States leads to a
conclusion that these raw material providers firstly dumped their
products into China,'' the official said.
It is also unreasonable that the United States choose India as
the surrogate country, despite the fact China's TV industry has a
high degree of competition and is in a full market economy.
By defining China as a non-market economy, US and EU
anti-dumping rules use production costs in a surrogate country,
where material and labour costs are much higher than in China, to
calculate the normal value of Chinese exports.
The official noted the United States has filed seven
anti-dumping cases with China this year, involving a value of
US$1.6 billion, which affected normal US-China trade.
Another official from the China Chamber of Commerce for Import
and Export of Machinery and Electronic Products, said the Chamber
will organize TV makers to negotiate the dumping margins with the
United States.
"The method of calculation is different from that in previous
cases. We find some problems in it,'' the official said.
He said the Chamber will submit the arguments after a thorough
study with local TV makers.
The ruling on Monday is preliminary and there are many more
steps before the final ruling, the official said.
"In the process, we will make efforts for a better result,'' he
said.
Li Yong, general manager of the Overseas Trading Co under the
Xiamen Overseas Chinese Electronic Co Ltd (Xoceco), one of China's
largest TV makers, said the ruling is unfair.
"But the ruling was expected, since we know it has turned into a
political issue as the US elections are coming,'' Li said.
Li expected the US officials will change their approach when
they conduct on-the-spot checks in China and said his company is
well prepared for it.
The TV ruling is the latest US move to create trade skirmishes
with China to help boost President Bush's re-election chances.
The US Commerce Department claimed last Saturday that two small
US firms were harmed by China's sales of pipe fittings at
below-market prices, which pave the way for the department to
finalize duties averaged at about 11 percent.
It also decided last Tuesday to impose safeguard measures on
Chinese imports of knitted fabric, dressing gowns and bras.
(China Daily November 26, 2003)