The European Commission must stop using the “surrogate country” method in anti-dumping investigations into imports from China and immediately withdraw wrongly imposed penalties on China’s steel, ceramic and photovoltaic industries, the Ministry of Commerce said. Its comments follow the imposition of anti-dumping duties of up to 28.5% by the European Commission on certain types of corrosion-resistant steel from China. The European Commission imposed the duties after an eight-month probe, and claimed that Chinese corrosion-resistant steel benefited from unfair government subsidies. The new EU import duties will range from 17.2% to 28.5%, and will affect Shougang Group, Shagang Group, Hesteel Group and a number of Chinese companies. Chinese manufacturers can challenge the EU decision within 25 days.

The Commission also announced that it will launch an anti-dumping investigation into Chinese truck tires. Wang Hejun, Director of the Trade Remedy and Investigation Bureau at the Ministry of Commerce, said China’s truck tire prices dropped due to a fall in raw material prices in global markets over the past two years. So, European truck tire manufacturers’ accusations that their Chinese counterparts benefited from state subsidies are unfounded and lack adequate proof, Wang said. Earlier this year, the United States halted its investigation into China’s truck tire product exports as it found they had caused no harm to its domestic manufacturers.