Early-warning system for trade disputes
(Xinhua)
Updated: 2004-06-06 08:54

China announced in Shanghai on June 5 the establishment of its first monitoring and early-warning system for trade remedy measures to handle increasing anti-dumping appeals from developed countries after its accession to the World Trade Organization.

"The government will work to create a legal environment for fair competition by ending our administrative interference in companies' management," said Wang Qinhua, director of the Bureau of Industry Injury Investigation under the Ministry of Commerce (MOC), who spoke highly of the system.

The system was developed jointly by Shanghai Consulting Center on WTO Issues, Shanghai Municipal Foreign Trade and Economic Commission and Shanghai Information Center based on the agreements on anti-dumping, anti-subsidies and remedy measures within the WTO framework.

Li Chenggang, deputy director of MOC's Fair Trade Bureau for Imports and Exports, said the establishment of the early-warning system will "effectively" help companies, industry associations and governmental departments to quickly adjust to international markets and greatly reduce trade disputes.

The system covers 189 varieties of export goods in 18 categories, mainly textile, home appliance, steel and furniture, which account for some 60 percent of China's total exports to the United States every year.

Registered companies will get the information like the monitoring and early-warning services on the quantity, future prices, dumping margins and industry injuries of Chinese products exported to the United States, according to the system.

Companies can also obtain monitoring reports on US trade remedy measures and have inquiry and training services to respond to anti-dumping investigations or charges.

Enterprise can acquire such early-warning system on trade remedy measures after they log on to two websites (www.sccwto.net and www.shcei.gov.cn) and register a membership, according to Pro. Wang Xinkui, president of Shanghai Consulting Center on WTO Issues.

Wang said the Ministry of Commerce might expand other early-warning systems on trade disputes in other major harbor cities before forging a nationwide world trade services system.

China has been confronted with increasing trade conflicts and disputes with other WTO members since its entry to the WTO in December 2001. WTO statistics show the agency's members had filed a total of 2,416 anti-dump cases for investigation by the end of 2003, with about one seventh of them involving China.

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