WORLD TRADE  
ORGANIZATION  TN/RL/GEN/55 
4 July 2005 
 (05-2885) 
Negotiating Group on Rules Original:   English 
  
 
PROPOSAL ON ESTABLISHMENT OF RESPONDING 
AND COMMENT PROCEDURE AFTER INITIATION  
 
Communication from China
 
   The following communication, dated 30 June 2005,  is being circulated at the request of the 
Delegation of China. 
 
 The submitting delegation has requested that th is paper, which was submitted to the Rules 
Negotiating Group as an informal document (JOB(05)/ 138), also be circulated as a formal document. 
 
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Summary  
1.  Clarification and improvement of the procedures of anti-dumping and countervailing investigations are an important part of rules nego tiations, which is helpful for effective protection of 
the substantive rights of the interested parties. Ch ina would suggest that the following provisions be 
added to the ADA and ASCM:  a 20-day respondi ng and comment period be established between 
initiation and issue of questionnaires, to allow the producers and/or exporters involved in the 
investigation to respond to the authorities and comm ent on the information given in the public notice 
of initiation. Such a procedure would help the r espondents in making the necessary preparations for 
responding to the questionnaire to be released. Also , it would address the situation where the current 
Agreements provide no explicit ri ght or procedure for the interested parties to comment on the 
initiation. Furthermore, it would help the authoriti es to acquire basic information from respondents as 
early as possible and thus mitigate the burden of investigation.  
 Description of the problem 
 
2.  As far as the respondents are concerned, the current practice requires th at they must make the 
decision on whether to respond, decide on their defen ce strategy, set up a working team, hire lawyers, 
compiling past sales data, collect company informati on, respond to questionnair es, have the responses 
translated, bound and posted all within 30 days after receipt of the questionnaires. For firms with a 
large amount of exports and transactions, especially  those small- and medium -sized firms from 
developing countries, they often choose not to res pond for fears of not being able to complete the 
questionnaires within such a short period of time.  Therefore, establishing a 20-day responding and 
comment period after initiation and before the re lease of questionnaires for companies to make 
decisions on whether to respond and to comment on  the initiation would enable the respondents to 
concentrate on issues related to filling the questi onnaires in the questionnaires phase, thus effectively 
reducing their burden of defence and, at the same ti me, providing the authorities with information in 
greater detail, adequacy and accuracy, increasi ng the likelihood of fair determinations.  
 
3.  A 20-day responding and comment period could al so help to change the situation where the 
current Agreements have not explicitly provided the respondents with the right or procedure for TN/RL/GEN/55 
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 commenting on the public notice of initiation and to pr event them from being rushed into the phase of 
answering questionnaires and thus being handicapped at the very beginning of the investigation. 
Within the 20-day responding and comment period,  respondents may comment on the information 
given in the public notice of initiation, including th e representativeness of the applicant, scope of the 
product under consideration and evid ence given for justifying the initiation of the investigation.  
 
Representativeness of the applicant 
 
 
4.  The issue of representativeness of the applican t must be addressed by the authorities before 
the initiation of an investigation.  This is dealt with  in Article 5.4 of the ADA.  But in practice, there 
may be proceedings initiated where the output of the applicant is not sufficient to represent the 
domestic industry. In such cases, the authorities should immediately terminate the proceeding upon 
confirmation. China believes that a 20-day respondi ng and comment period established after initiation 
and before the release of questionnaires would a llow respondents to make comments on the issue of 
standing and draw the attention of the authoriti es to this issue so that the latter may make 
clarifications to the extent possible and try to resolve the problem at the very outset.  
 
Scope of product under consideration  
 5.  Scope of product under cons ideration, which has a direct bearing on the fairness of the 
determinations, is of critical im portance in both anti-dumping and c ountervailing investigations. In 
practice, application documents and public notice on initiation cont ain information on the scope of 
product under consideration as well as the correspondi ng HS Codes for reference. However, it occurs 
quite often that, due to ambiguity in product scope description and different HS code systems used by 
different Members, respondents would encounter diffi culties in terms of identifying the exact scope of 
product under consideration and providing sufficient and accurate information to the authorities. In 
case of ambiguity in product scope description, r espondents should have the right to express their 
concerns to and seek clarification from the authoriti es. If they suspect that their products are included 
in the scope of product under consideration by mi stake, they shall have the right to defend their 
interest by submitting comments to the authorities al ong with a preliminary analysis of the issue, 
whereas the authorities may to the extent possibl e provide preliminary responses on the basis of 
information available, which would facilitate the resolution of the problems.  
 Evidence for justifying the initiation of an investigation
 
 
6.  In the responding and comment period, b ased on the information and data available, 
respondents may make comments on the accuracy and adequacy of the evidence on which the 
initiation is based, challenge the ev idence and provide a preliminary analysis thereof, so as to draw 
the authorities’ attention to the relevant evidence at  the very beginning of the proceeding and ensure 
that the grounds for initiation and subsequent invest igation meet the requirements of the Agreement.  
If respondents should demonstrate that the author ities have no adequate evidence to justify the 
initiation, the authorities shall terminate the proceedi ngs without delay, so as to avoid the waste of 
resources and save costs for interested parties.  
 
7.  As far as the investigating authorities are concerned, the current practice that allows no 
intervening period between initiation and the releas e of questionnaires means that the authorities 
would not be able to obtain information such as the intention of producers/exporters to respond, 
number of respondents, their import volume and ex istence of any objection to the initiation of 
investigation until after the close of the questionnaires period.  In that case, the authorities would find 
it difficult to grasp the issues of contention at an early date or make an accurate assessment of the 
priorities and workload of the subsequent investig ation, or, particularly in cases where sampling is 
required, proceed with the sampling smoothly if information pertaining to the respondents is not 
received in time.  The institution of the 20-day post-initiation responding and comment period would  TN/RL/GEN/55 
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 help resolve the above problems, reduce the work load for the authorities, improve their work 
efficiency while increasing the predictability of the proceedings and cutting the cost.  
 
Proposal 
 
8.  The following paragraph shall be added in Article 5 of the ADA  (initiation and subsequent 
investigation) and Article 11 of the ASCM (initiation and subsequent investigation):  
 
The authorities shall in the public notice on the initiation of an investigation give the 
interested parties a period of 20 days after the date of initiation to notify the latter’s 
intention to participate in the procee ding, provide the relevant information1 and 
comment on the information contained in the notice of initiation, such as the 
representativeness of the applicant, the scope  of the product under consideration and 
the evidence given to justify the initiation of  the investigation. The authorities shall 
take due account of such comments. Ques tionnaires shall be sent to the interested 
parties within 10 days after the date of expiry of the above responding and comment 
period.    
9.  This paper does not purport to represent the People’s Republic of China’s final views on this 
matter and the People’s Republic of China reserves the right to make further proposals.  
  
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1 Information may include but not be limited to name, address, legal representative, contact details and 
contact person of the interested parties, total volume and value of the product under investigation exported to the investigating Member during the investigation period, and th e official seal of the interested parties or signature 
of the legal representative.