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China warns WTO on its cheaper exports hard to resist

Reacting to concerns over Chinese dumping, the world's second-largest economy has slapped a notice on complaints with World Trade Organization (WTO) that such baseless concerns about its cheaper exports should need to meet higher standards from December 2016.

Several WTO member nations consider China is dumping its goods at unfair prices in the international market. However, Chinese representative rules out this demand saying that such practice is outdated and unfair.

China became a member of WTO in 2001 and ever since, the dragon country has been facing complaints about its dumping of goods.

China has served a notice to WTO including European Union (EU) and the US. 

Many WTO member countries consider the Chinese exports as sold at unfairly low prices in the global markets.

However, importing countries under WTO rules can impose tariffs on goods if they're being dumped. These claims can be compared with domestic prices in the exporting country. 

According to Chinese terms, it's not a market economy and its domestic prices are not needed by other countries for making a comparison. China's representative at the recent WTO meeting said comparing with domestic prices was an outdated practice.

The demand from WTO member nations on comparing with Chinese domestic prices was discriminatory and unfair.

China would automatically be considered as market economy only after 15 years, or effective 11 December 2016, according to Chinese representative.

From 11 December 2016, the WTO rules prohibit countries calculating on comparison with domestic prices.

All WTO member nations need to stop using their own calculations from this date, according to the Chinese representative, who spoke to the media after the meeting. However, details about Chinese representative were not given including his name.

Dumping of products has become a cause of concern for many countries and majority of them have imposed anti-dumping duties on Chinese exports. WTO has notified anti-dumping measures in EU pertaining to 22 categories of China products in September alone. 

WTO has lowered its forecast by half a percentage point for 2015 year. The first half was not encouraging for the emerging economies.

World merchandise trade volume may rise 2.8 percent for the whole year and this is less than the previous forecast of 3.3 percent made in April. The sluggish demand in China and Brazil is impacting the international trade. 

The China products range includes solar power components, steel products, metals, food ingredients, citric acid and monosodium glutamate. The EU has imposed duties on Chinese bicycles, ring binder mechanism, and rainbow trout.

Over 20 percent of 500 disputes registered with WTO during the past 20 years were related to dumping issue only. A majority of such cases involve the EU, the US and China. 


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