WTO rules China winner in US shrimp dispute

The World Trade Organization on Friday ruled in China's favour after Beijing contested anti-dumping measures imposed by the US on imports of frozen Chinese shrimp. The WTO's Dispute Settlement Body found that Washington had "acted inconsistently" with trade rules by using the methods it did to calculate dumping margins on imports of Chinese warmwater shrimp and diamond sawblades from 2004 and 2005. Anti-dumping duties are imposed on goods that are deemed to have been "dumped," or exported at an unfairly low price, and may injure producers in the importing country. The US is now expected to bring its measures into line with the Anti-Dumping Agreement. Nonetheless, a Washington spokesman insisted that the Chinese complaint was "pointless", since the practice of "zeroing" used to calculate dumping margins and criticised in the report had been phased out.