Bloomberg reported that World Trade Organization judges agreed to investigate whether European Union duties on Chinese screws and bolts are discriminatory.

China initiated the WTO case on July 31st 2009, 6 months after the EU announced plans to impose the 5 year duties on imports of Chinese iron or steel fasteners valued at about EUR 575 million in 2007. EU said at the time that the tariffs would prevent further distortions and restore fair competition.

The EU applied the levies after concluding that Chinese companies had sold the carbon steel fasteners in Europe at artificially low prices, a practice known as dumping. China says the duties unfairly penalize the commercial interests of more than 1,700 of the country’s fastener producers.

China accounts for 60% of EU imports of the fasteners, which are used for everything from car parts to furniture and also come from Taiwan, the US and Japan. Manufacturers from Jiaxing city in eastern China, representing a quarter of Chinese fastener exports, say they’re being unfairly targeted because they charge the same as Taiwanese producers and more than rivals in Malaysia, Vietnam and India.

The EU didn’t try to block the establishment of the panel of judges, agreeing to China’s first request to have WTO arbitration. Under the WTO’s dispute rules, the EU could have delayed the first request, putting off creation of the panel for a month.

Mr Lutz Guellner European Commission’s trade spokesman said that "The EU decided not to delay the case for no other reason than administrative constraints such as available resources to deal with these issues."

(Sourced from www.bloomberg.net)