Wednesday January 30 11:58 AM ET Japan Files WTO Complaint Over Steel TOKYO (AP) - Japan filed a complaint to the World Trade Organization (news - web sites) on Wednesday against U.S. antidumping measures on Japanese steel sheets, saying they violate WTO rules, officials said.
The Japanese government also asked Washington to hold talks on resolving the dispute under WTO auspices, said Makoto Nakajima, a spokesman at the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry. Washington decided in November 2000 to maintain antidumping measures on Japan's exports of surface-treated steel panels used in automobile bodies. The trade ministry said it believed the United States reimposed the measure without collecting sufficient evidence. Under WTO rules, a country must gather sufficient evidence before starting a review of its antidumping action - taken against imports at unfairly low prices - or let it expire in five years. But Japan says the United States, which initially imposed the measure in August 1993, automatically began its review five years later without any evidence and has since maintained it. Japanese officials say the United States also violated the accord by setting excessively strict standards on dropping the antidumping action. Tokyo also plans to propose tougher antidumping rules at the new round of WTO trade talks, which began Monday.
