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S. Korea seeks WTO ruling against U.S. anti-dumping tariffs

All News 18:00 December 22, 2014

SEJONG, Dec. 22 (Yonhap) -- South Korea on Monday filed a complaint with the World Trade Organization against the U.S. punitive tariffs on its steel tubes.

The U.S. Department of Commerce imposed punitive tariffs of 9.89 percent to 15.75 percent on South Korean steel pipes, used in oil wells, on July 11.

"The government on Monday referred the U.S. anti-dumping duties against steel tubes exported by our firms to the WTO after concluding that the high tariffs are in violation of WTO agreements," the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy said in a press release.

The ministry said earlier that there was another option of taking the case to the U.S. Court of International Trade, but South Korean firms decided against it.

"The (local) exporters asked the (South Korean) government on Aug. 13 to file a complaint with the WTO, citing injustice in the U.S.' anti-dumping measures," the ministry said.

The anti-dumping tariff rate is based on the difference between the local and imported price of any given product.

Because there is virtually no local demand for South Korean steel pipes, with 98 percent of them shipped to the United States, the U.S. had to use "constructed value" as the local price. A constructed value of a product is a sum of production costs; administrative costs, such as shipping and marketing fees; and the company's profit.

The U.S., however, used the profitability of multinational companies instead of that of South Korean manufacturers, apparently making the end value of South Korean products much higher than what they are.

"The government has determined that the U.S. Commerce Department's method of calculating anti-dumping tariff rates may have violated the WTO convention, and if the government wins the case, the U.S. will have an obligation to amend its anti-dumping measures," the ministry said.

The WTO process first requires bilateral negotiations for a settlement.

In 2013, South Korean manufacturers shipped 894,000 tons of steel tubes for oil wells, worth US$817 million, to the U.S.

bdk@yna.co.kr
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