The WTO has opened an investigation into whether EU charges on imports of Chinese steel fasteners comply with international commerce rules.
Beijing said the EU was illegally taxing steel fasteners needed for products from furniture to cars, but the 27-nation bloc said Chinese manufacturers were breaking trade rules by selling a flood of screws at 30 percent to 50 percent below European prices.
Brussels passed on a chance to delay the probe, saying it was “strongly convinced of the strength of its case.”
The screw dispute between the EU and China is highly sensitive.
The two parties held negotiations in Geneva last month that failed to break the deadlock and heavy lobbying by Chinese screwmakers earlier this year also had little effect.
In January, the EU slapped Chinese exporters with trade charges ranging between 26.5 percent and 85 percent for five years, arguing that below-cost selling by Chinese companies prevented European producers from gaining extra market share as sales boomed in recent years.
Governments investigate dumping when they suspect foreign producers are exporting goods at artificially low prices — usually as a result of subsidies or in an attempt to corner a market.
Beijing, however, argues that the action unfairly penalizes the commercial interests of more than 1,700 Chinese fastener producers.
Manufacturers from Jiaxing City, Zhejiang Province, in eastern China — representing a quarter of Chinese screw exports — said they were unfairly being singled out because they charge the same as Taiwanese producers and more than rivals based in Malaysia, Vietnam and India.
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