Keith Nuthall
The appellate body of the World Trade Organization (WTO) has dismissed the bulk of China’s appeals against a panel which ruled its export duties and quotas on key steelmaking raw materials illegal.
The Chinese government will now have to remove these charges and restrictions, which the European Union (EU), Mexico and the US were claiming had unfairly restricted the flow of these industrial minerals onto world markets.
The effect, they said, was to inflate global prices, while reducing prices in the Chinese market, giving Chinese companies consuming these materials an unfair advantage against foreign competitors.
The EU, Mexico and the US had argued these export restrictions broke China’s commitments on trade liberalisation, made when it joined the WTO in 2001 and also the WTO’s General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT).
The appellate body said in a communique, it had “upheld the...