. /.  WORLD TRADE  
ORGANIZATION  G/ADP/W/461 
26 October 2006 
 
 (06-5156) 
Committee on Anti-Dumping Practices Original:   English 
  
 
TRANSITIONAL REVIEW MECHANISM PURSUANT TO 
PARAGRAPH 18 OF THE PROTOCOL ON THE ACCESSION 
OF THE PEOPLE'S REPUBLIC OF CHINA 
 
Statement of the United States
 
 
  The following communication, dated 24 October 2006, is being circulated at the request of the Delegation of the United States.  
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  Today we undertake the fifth annual review of China's implementation of its anti-dumping 
regime under the Transitional Review Mechanism of China's Protocol of Accession.  These reviews 
provide Members an opportunity to examine China' s efforts to meet its obligations under the Anti-
Dumping Agreement.  Similar to prior reviews, th e United States continues to have concerns about 
how China conducts its anti-dumping actions, but al so notes that China has been incrementally 
improving its compliance efforts.  Yet, five years and many antidumping actions after its accession, it appears that China still faces many  hurdles before its anti-dumping regime reaches the standards of 
transparency and procedural fairness  fully  commensurate with the requirements of the Anti-Dumping 
Agreement.   
  In past transitional reviews before this Comm ittee, the United States ra ised serious concerns 
about the availability of information from China's ad ministering authority, the Ministry of Commerce 
("MOFCOM"), and its injury arm in particular, the I nvestigation Bureau for Industry Injury ("IBII").  
As can be seen from the questions filed by th e United States for this transitional review 
(G/ADP/W/459), many of these problems persist today.   
  Interested parties, including responding parties and officials of the US Government, continue 
to be frustrated in their attempts to obtain adequa te non-confidential versions of documents, such as 
Chinese industry responses to IBII questionnaires.   Article 6.5 of the Anti-Dumping Agreement 
requires that non-confidential summaries of confiden tial documents be in sufficient detail to permit a 
reasonable understanding of the substance of the information submitted in confidence.  As the 
United States pointed out last year, without access to confidential information submitted to 
MOFCOM, it is essential to responding parties to have comprehensive and informative 
non-confidential summaries in order to be able to mount an effective defence.  We have received 
continued complaints from responding parties that non-confidential summaries, when they are finally 
made available, contain insufficient factual informat ion to permit development of effective arguments.  
  Furthermore, the United States continues to be concerned that critical arguments or evidence 
put forward by interested parties have not been ad dressed adequately in either preliminary or final 
determinations.  This problem rema ins especially prevalent in injury determinations.  Similarly, many 
of the conclusions MOFCOM reaches in its determin ations do not appear to be supported by adequate 
evidence.  In many instances, either  no evidence is cited at all, or the evidence cited is not available to G/ADP/W/461 
Page 2  
 
  anyone except the administering authority.  As  the United States has previously emphasized, 
conclusory statements without evidentiary suppor t do not constitute "positive evidence" within the 
meaning of Article 3.1 of the Anti-Dumping Agreement.   In particular, details of the factual basis and 
reasoning supporting the investigating authority's d ecisions, as well as petiti oners' allegations and 
briefs , must be made available to all interested parties.    
 
 The United States also urges China to apply fair  procedures to all parties to an investigation 
as envisioned by the Anti-Dumping Agreement.  For i nvestigations and reviews, this includes, but is 
not limited to, timely access to administrators and fa vourable consideration of hearing requests, as 
embodied in Article 6.2 of the Anti-Dumping Agreemen t.  We were encouraged by IBII’s decision to 
hold a public hearing regarding its investigation of butanols in June of this year, prior to the 
preliminary determination.  We urge China to provi de all interested parties with the opportunity to 
raise issues in an open and transparent setting at an  early stage of every proceeding.  However, the 
United States is concerned that China continues to r esort to private meetings with selected parties as a 
principal means to obtain views of parties.  The United States reiterates that interested parties not 
present for private meetings should be quickly inform ed of matters discussed at these meetings and be 
given an opportunity to present their rebuttal, in  accordance with Article 6.3 of the Anti-Dumping 
Agreement.   Even the most objective and transparent inves tigation can be undermined by poor interaction 
between the administering authorities and the cu stoms authorities that assess the anti-dumping duties 
at the border.  In a growing number of cases, the US government has received reports from 
responding parties of Chinese customs authorities either assessing anti-dumping duties on merchandise not subject to a measure, or imposing seemingly unreasonable burdens of proof before 
allowing entry of non-subject merchandise.  Although MOFCOM has shown improvement in 
responding in a timely manner to these customs probl ems once raised by interested parties, these 
situations are needlessly complicated by the lack of  uniform procedures for importers to resolve this 
type of dispute.  The United States urges China to  put in place governing procedures and to refine the 
process by which MOFCOM and Chinese customs offi cials at China's ports confirm the precise 
merchandise subject to each anti-dumping measure and the anti-dumping duty rates applicable to each 
importer.  We call to China's attention Article 5.9 of the Anti-Dumping Agreement, which provides 
that anti-dumping proceedings shall not hinder customs clearance. 
 
 In past transitional reviews, the United States al so has noted that China did not appear to have 
notified all relevant legislation to the Committee a nd, in particular, asked that China clarify which 
rules apply to its prosecution of anti-dumping actions.  The same problem persists this year − key 
pieces of China's legislation still appear not to have been notified to this Committee, leaving 
considerable uncertainty as to the rules being used by China to conduct its anti-dumping actions.  
Some of the questions filed by the United States in this year’s review are aimed at legislation which 
may directly or indirectly shape China’s anti-dum ping regime, but which have not been notified to 
this Committee.  Lapses in notification deny other WTO Members  the opportunity to review and 
comment on the content of these new regulations in order to further clarify key aspects  of their 
implementation.  The United States urges China to cl arify in detail to this Committee the full set of 
rules, regulations and laws that cu rrently govern its anti-dumping regime. 
  The United States recognizes the strides China h as made to develop a legal framework for its 
anti-dumping regime that takes into account the prin ciples of transparency and fair procedures as set 
forth in the Anti-Dumping Agreement.  With much of that legal framework now in place, China must 
continue to strive to improve the conduct of its anti-dumping actions.  The United States looks 
forward to seeing continued improvement and offers its assistance to China in pursuit of that goal. 
 
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