CAAM Calls for Countermeasures Against EU Anti-dumping Investigation into Wheel Hubs

BEIJING, Aug. 13 -- The China Association of Automobile Manufacturers (CAAM) has scheduled a meeting of related wheel-hub exporters in response to the anti-dumping dispute raised by the European Union (EU), said Xiong Chuanlin, deputy secretary general of the CAAM.

    The EU recently announced it intends to launch an anti-dumping investigation into China's aluminum alloy wheel-hub products. If the submission by the Association of European Wheel Manufacturers were approved, the EU would levy a tariff of up to 33 percent on Chinese hubs, which would significantly affect China's wheel hub exporters.

    Xiong believes that the export prices of China's hubs is higher than China's domestic prices, which means the investigation is not in line with the rules of the World Trade Organization (WTO). It was unnecessary to launch an anti-dumping investigation into Chinese exports of aluminum alloy hubs, as they account for less than 8 percent of EU sales.

    The investigation will seriously hurt the trade in automotive spare parts between the EU and China, and is not beneficial to the global division of production and distribution and supply chain management of EU multinational automakers, and also not good to costs control in procurement by EU automakers and the recovery of the European automotive industry, he said.

    Xiong pointed out that Chinese aluminum alloy wheel hubs producers have invested large sums of money in research and development, and that their products have been widely used by leading automakers such as Mercedez-Benz, BMW AG, Audi AG and Volkswagen. If the dumping allegation is upheld, the investment will have been in vain.

    (Source: chinamining.org)