China appeals WTO rule on steel dispute with US

GENEVA - China on Friday appealed part of the WTO preliminary ruling favoring the United States in its claims against Chinese anti-dumping duties on electrical steel products from the US.

"China appeals certain issues of law and legal interpretation covered in the panel report," WTO said in a brief notice.

According to WTO rules, the appeal is expected to be handled by a panel of three members from the seven-member Appellate Body. Generally, the Appellate Body has up to three months to consider the appeal and conclude an appeal report.

On June 15, the WTO made its preliminary ruling on certain countervailing and anti-dumping duties imposed by China on grain oriented flat-rolled electrical steel (GOES) from the United States.

Preliminary ruling upheld some of the US claims which said China had initiated countervailing duty investigations into 11 programs without sufficient evidence to justify the move.

Other claims, like the accusation that the Chinese Ministry of Commerce had not disclosed the data and calculations it used to arrive at the dumping margins for the two respondent companies, were rejected by the panel.

The ministry initiated countervailing and anti-dumping duties investigations over GOES imports from the US in 2009. It decided to apply the duties in April 2010.

Five month later, the US took the case to the WTO.