THE United States said Friday it had taken trade disputes with China over U.S. steel imports and electronic payment services to the World Trade Organization (WTO).
The United States requested the Geneva-based WTO to establish two panels to settle the disputes, U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk said in a statement.
The WTO action marked an escalation in the long-running list of trade disputes between the world s largest economy and its fast-growing Asian rival.
One case addressed China s imposition of anti-dumping duties and countervailing duties on imports of grain-oriented flat-rolled electrical steel from the United States, the statement said.
The other case challenged China s allegedly discriminatory and restrictive treatment of U.S. suppliers of electronic payment services.
Previous U.S. attempts to resolve the two disputes directly with China had failed, the U.S. Trade Representative said.
We are troubled by the procedures and decision-making employed by China in its trade remedy investigations, which have now led to serious restrictions on exports of American steel, Kirk said.
We also remain deeply concerned about China s continuing efforts to reserve its domestic payment card market for one State-owned enterprise, to the exclusion of American credit and debit card companies.
The United States accuses China of flouting WTO rules in applying additional duties on imports of the electrical steel, used by the power-generating industry in transformers, reactors, and other large electric machines.
China imposed duties on specific steel imports in April 2009, saying the American steel had been dumped sold at less than fair market value into its market and was subsidized.
The U.S. Trade Representative said that China s anti-dumping and subsidy determinations in the case appeared to violate numerous WTO requirements, including initiating the proceedings without sufficient evidence and failing to disclose essential facts underlying its conclusions.
In the second case, the United States accused China of creating a national champion to monopolize the country s operation of electronic payment transactions, which it estimated was worth several hundred billion dollars in 2010.
While most of the world s top providers of electronic payment services for credit and debit cards are headquartered in the United States, the U.S. Trade Representative said, China prohibits foreign suppliers from handling the typical payment card transaction in China.
China s regulator of electronic payment services, the People s Bank of China, has issued a series of measures dating back to 2001 that provide a Chinese domestic entity, China UnionPay (CUP), with a monopoly over the handling of domestic currency payment card transactions in China while excluding other potential suppliers, the U.S. trade office said.
(SD-Agencies)
