China’s Ministry of Commerce (MOC) on Monday announced anti-dumping measures on imported stainless steel products from the European Union and three Asian nations.

Dumping is an international-trade term that describes a country or company exporting a product at a price that is lower in the foreign import market than the price in the exporter’s domestic market, in order to gain a competitive advantage.

“Starting on July 23, 2019, [China] will introduce anti-dumping duties in the amount from 18.1 percent to 103.1 percent on steel imports from the European Union, Japan, Indonesia and South Korea, which include steel billets and hot-rolled stainless steel plates,” the ministry said in a statement, adding that the tax will be introduced for a five-year period.

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The decision follows an anti-dumping probe in July last year which was launched after complaints from the domestic industry. The complaints were filed by state-owned Shanxi Taigang Stainless Steel, which accounts for 25-35 percent of China’s steel production, and by four other mills.

“The investigation agency has made a final decree that there was dumping of the investigated products and it has caused substantive damage to the industry in China,” the MOC said.

Data from China’s Stainless Steel Association showed that the country produced 26.71 million tons of stainless steel products in 2018, up 2.4 percent from the previous year.

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The world’s largest producer and consumer of stainless steel imported 1.85 million tons of stainless steel products last year, up 53.7 percent from 2017.

In 2017, the European Union hiked anti-dumping duties on imports of hot-rolled flat steel products from China, following complaints from European producers ArcelorMittal, Tata Steel and ThyssenKrupp. Levies were increased from 13.2 percent to 22.6 percent. The move angered Beijing, which promised to respond.

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