BRASILIA, Feb. 21 (Xinhua) -- Brazil on Monday hailed a World Trade Organization ruling that it said backed its complaint against the U.S. anti-dumping measures on Brazilian orange juice imports.
The WTO dispute panel has yet to publicly release its final report on the complaint.

"This report represents a significant victory for Brazil in a relevant topic to bilateral trade," the Brazilian Foreign Ministry said in a statement.
Brazil is the world's largest exporter of orange juice, with an annual turnover of 2 billion U.S. dollars, and the United States is its biggest customers and one of its biggest competitors.

Washington imposed up to 60 percent of tariff on Brazilian orange juice, which it claimed was being sold at artificially low prices in the United States. Brazil said the measure was hurting Brazilian exporters' sales.

According to Brazil, the "zeroing" distorted the dumping margin calculation and ignored transactions in which the product's export value was higher than its normal value in the domestic market.

The Brazilian government deemed "zeroing" incompatible with regulations of WTO's Anti-dumping Agreement and GATT (General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade).

According to the statement released Monday, Brasilia has carefully followed the U.S. regulating proposal, which recommended changes in the calculation of dumping margins.

"Brazil hopes the United States uses this proposal to end zeroing and to conform to WTO rules," the Foreign Ministry said.
The final ruling will be released when the text is available in the organization's three official languages. Both sides can appeal the decision within 60 days.