In 2015, The Trade Remedy and Investigation Bureau of the Ministry of Commerce centered on the main commercial work, implemented the decisions and deployment of the Central Party Committee and the State Council, and guaranteed that the trade remedy work conforms to the requirement of “stabilizing growth, adjusting structure, promoting reform, benefiting the people and preventing risks”. Therefore, the needs of the construction of “Belt and Road” and the needs of the building of the open economic system have gained positive achievements in creating favorable foreign trade environment, maintaining the development of domestic industries, actively taking part in the rules negotiations and promoting the quality of public service.
1. We spare no efforts to handle the global trade disputes on photovoltaic products. In recent years, Chinese photovoltaic products encountered anti-dumping and countervailing investigations in major export markets like the U.S., EU, Australia, Canada and India, with the involved volume reaching US$ 25.3 billion. Following the principle of considering mutual benefits and promoting common development, China and the U.S. actively handle it, conducting more than 20 rounds of negotiations to properly solve the photovoltaic problems; China and the EU conducted several rounds of dialogue on the problems in prices commitments and continued to implement the agreement steadily; the final ruling of Australia considered it no damage; Canada levied a low countervailing duty; India did not implement the final remedy measures; Japan did not launch the investigation. At present, Chinese photovoltaic enterprises further optimized the products structure, the export tempo and overseas distribution were more reasonable, and their competitiveness and anti-risk capability were promoted largely.
2. We promoted the cooperation of the industry to solve the disputes on the trade of iron and steel. China’s iron and steel has ranked the first in the industries for 8 consecutive years. In 2015, there were 37 cases involving US$ 4.7 billion. For these, the government and the industry began coordinated cooperation. In the anti-dumping investigation launched by the Eurasian Economic Commission against China’s oil well pipe and Korea’s H-shaped steel, both governments handled the cases from the overall perspective of cooperation strengthening and stable relationship maintaining, and reached the price commitment arrangement; through unremitting demurrer, the Eurasian Economic Commission terminated the countervailing investigation against the cold-rolled stainless steel sheet, and settled the anti-dumping case against the oriented electrical steel with the lowest price floor. We made full use of various multilateral and bilateral channels, conducting in-depth dialogue on control disputes and promoting capacity cooperation.
3. New progress has been made in settling disputes properly through dialogue. We continued to explore the methods to effectively settle trade disputes through active response and in-depth communication: China-EU cooperation in the field of wireless communication was steadily promoted; the U.S. and Egypt decided not to adopt anti-dumping and countervailing measures against China’s inland container of 53 feet and PET respectively; Peru canceled all the anti-dumping tax against Chinas’ clothing under 276 tax numbers; the 14 cases launched by emerging markets like Argentina were settled without measures. We promoted the industries of Turkey and Brazil to conduct practical communication on cellphones, ceramics and shoes, making efforts to reach price commitment agreement. Algeria adjusted the contents of part of latest regulations on automobiles, in order to guarantee that China’s 10 thousands of automobiles backlogged at the port could be cleared by the customs smoothly.
4. We conducted trade remedy measures according to the law properly and steadily. We paid close attention to the development of fundamental industries, the newly emerging strategic industries and the industries with competitive advantages. The trade remedy measures were expanded from fundamental industries like steel, chemical engineering and agriculture to medicine, new energy and new material. In 2015, according to the application of the industries, the Ministry of Commerce launched 11 (according to the WTO statistics, the same below) anti-dumping investigations of first trial according to the law against 4 import products including unbleached sack kraft paper, oriented electrical steel, acrylic fibers and amorphous metal material. It also launched 12 countervailing review investigations against 6 products like fastener, photographic paper, chicken, and etc. Following the open and transparent procedure and the principle of entity justice, the investigatory apparatus made 4 first trial rules and 13 review rules.
