The ruling, against which both sides have 60 days to appeal, marks a victory for China in its first WTO dispute against the European Union.
It is also a setback to the European Union in dealing with imports from countries that it considers are not market economies, such as China, Vietnam and Cuba.
Earlier this week China appealed against a ruling in another case involving US duties, in which a panel upheld the right of the United States to levy duties on goods from non-market economies to compensate for both unfair pricing and subsidies.
China welcomed Friday’s ruling, saying the way the EU had calculated the duties had imposed “great burdens and unfair treatments” on Chinese enterprises, and called on Brussels to withdraw the regulations.
“The Panel’s rulings make it clear that the EU’s anti-dumping legislation and practice are discriminatory and inconsistent with WTO rules,” it said in a statement.
Friday’s ruling confirmed a Reuters report in August that China had prevailed in the case.
But the panel did not back all of China’s claims in its 394-page report, and did not meet China’s request that it recommend how the EU should bring its practices into conformity with global trade rules.
WTO rules allow countries to set extra duties on imports that are “dumped” — sold below their price at home — if that harms industry in the importing country.
But calculating these anti-dumping duties is difficult with imports from non-market economies, because state intervention in the economy means there is no obvious fair domestic price to take as a reference.
China successfully argued that the EU’s approach to calculating these duties was wrong in many cases.
China has been involved in an escalating dispute with the European Union over fasteners, imposing its own anti-dumping duties on EU imports.
In October the EU’s executive commission started to investigate whether Chinese exporters were trying to evade the EU duties by shipping screws and bolts via Malaysia. (
