China and EU Agree "Reasonable Period" in WTO AD Case

The WTO has published a joint communication from China and the EU which confirms the two parties have agreed the "reasonable period", during which the EU is required to bring its anti-dumping procedures into compliance with the July 2011 WTO ruling, will end on 12th October 2012.

At slightly less than 15 months from the date of the final WTO ruling the period was broadly as expected and is a routine part of the WTO dispute resolution process. In most disputes a similar period is agreed or where agreement cannot be reached a WTO adjudicator typically specifies 15 months.

The agreement is very unlikely to have any short term effect on the up to 85% anti-dumping duties currently in force on EU imports of certain steel fasteners from China.

To date the European Union has given little indication of exactly how it intends amending it anti-dumping procedures to conform to the WTO ruling, which it opposed vigorously throughout.  It is expected that the EU will need to amend the so called basic regulation (currently 1225/2009) on which all its anti-dumping procedures are based.

Regulation 91/2009 which applied the anti-dumping duties on steel fasteners from China is not officially due to terminate until January 2014.

As has happened previously when WTO decisions have been announced some Chinese fastener exporters are contacting importers, using a copy of the EU/China document to encourage the placing of orders. Until such time as the EU publishes changes to the specific anti-dumping regulation in the Official Journal any assumption that tariffs may be lifted is extremely risky. (source: Fastener&Fixing)