Recently, the U.S. Department of Commerce announced its preliminary determinations in the antidumping duty (AD) investigations on imports of potassium phosphate salts and coated paper from China.

Yao Jian, Spokesman of the Ministry of Commerce of China, said that frequent countervailing investigations and increasing anti-subsidy rate arbitrarily by the U.S. into Chinese products have unfairly restricted normal exports. China resolutely opposes the U.S. such abuse of trade remedy measures and consultations with the U.S. over actions against the WTO rules so as to protect legitimate interests of the Chinese enterprises.

Yao Jian said that the fresh anti-dumping measures came only two years after the U.S. rules China’s coated paper exports did not harm the domestic industry in November 2007. According to Yao, the fundamental reason behind the difficulties in the U.S. coated paper industry was due to weak demand caused by the financial crisis and passing the problem on to Chinese manufacturers was unacceptable. Yao said that we would pay close attention to the case and hoped that the U.S. could make an objective and fair ruling in the following investigation.

Yao also stated that the U.S. put forward the National Export Initiative recently, taking increasing export as a measure on promoting domestic economic recovery. However, the U.S. restricted the export to the U.S. from other countries by the abuse of trade remedy measures on the same time. Yao said the U.S. must adhere to the open market and maintain the free development of the global trade with other countries and regions if it wanted to expand its export. A country that tries to expand its export while restricting the exports of other countries will make the international trade environment worse. And finally things go athwart. Yao said, China hoped that the U.S. could reduce and cancel the trade restrictions on products exported from China, and solve the trade friction through consultations.