. /.RESTRICTEDWORLD TRADE
ORGANIZATIONG/ADP/IG/W/39
13 June 2001
(01-2937)
Committee on Anti-Dumping Practices
Informal Group on Anti-CircumventionOriginal:  English
TOPIC 2 – WHAT IS BEING DONE BY MEMBERS CONFRONTED
BY WHAT THEY CONSIDER TO BE CIRCUMVENTION?
Follow-up Questions of HONG KONG, CHINA to the UNITED STATES'
Replies1 to Questions Posed by HONG KONG, CHINA2
Regarding the Paper by the UNITED STATES3
The following communication, dated 11 June 2001, has been received from the Hong Kong
Economic and Trade Office.
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Without prejudice to Members' position on the consistency of national legislation and
practices in the area of anti-circumvention, Hong Kong, China would like to put forth the following
questions in response to the US’ replies to our questions in order to better comprehend what the US
investigation authorities do when they are confronted with what they consider to be circumvention.
"Standing" of the domestic industry (Q.2)
1. According to Article 5.4 of the AD Agreement, an investigation authority has to observe the
standing requirements of the domestic industry in the initiation of an AD investigation.  We note that
the US Commerce Department will entertain AC inqui ry applications only from entities which qualify
as domestic interested parties under US law in connection with the AD duty order alleged to becircumvented.  In this regard, we would be interested to know whether the US investigating authority
is required to apply any quantitative assessment on the standing of domestic interested parties making
an application for an AC inquiry.  For instance, is the application required to be supported by a certainpercentage of the whole group of domestic interested parties?
Self-initiation of an AC inquiry (Q.3)
2. It is noted that the US Commerce Department has self-initiated an AC inquiry only once and
that inquiry was pending as of October 2000.  Has there been any progress since October 2000?
On-site investigations (Q.6)
3. As on-site investigations may be conducted by the US authorities, we would like to seek
further clarification on whether the US Commerce De partment is required under US law to observe
the procedures for on-site investigations outlined in Article 6.7 and Annex I of the AD Agreement.
                                                     
1 G/ADP/IG/W/28
2 G/ADP/IG/W/24 & Corr.1
3 G/ADP/IG/W/22G/ADP/IG/W/39
Page 2
Injury Determination of the US International Trade Commission (ITC) (Q.7)
4. We note that the US Commerce Department will notify the ITC of its intent to reach a
determination to include the product(s) subject to an AC inquiry within the scope of the AD order.
We would like to know at what stage the ITC would be involved in the AC inquiry.  To have a better
understanding of the role of the ITC in the inquiry process, could the US give concrete AC inquiry
cases to illustrate how the ITC performs its analysis in determining whether a "significant injuryissue" exists?
Normal duration of an AC inquiry (Q.9)
5. Regarding the normal duration of an AC inquiry, we are interested in the possible reasons for
a relatively shorter timeframe in conducting an AC inquiry than that required for an original AD
investigation.  Is it because fewer parties could be qualified as interested parties in an inquiry or
because less time is needed/required for interested parties to present information/views?
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