The Ministry of Commerce says China's steel industry is strongly dissatisfied with the frequency and direction of US probes into Chinese steel products.

The US Department of Commerce launched three dual investigations into China-made wire trays, steel gratings, and stranded steel wire over just 10 days in the month of June.

The Ministry of Commerce says the export volume related to the three dual investigations is worth about 100 million US dollars for each case. Another probe into China-made oil well pipes in April had an even higher value, and involved many major Chinese iron and steel manufactures.

Zhou Xiaoyan, senior official on fair trade, Ministry of Commerce, said, "The probe into China-made oil well pipes has hit a value of 3.2 billion dollars, and 93 iron and steel enterprises were affected by the case. This has had a great impact on China's steel industry."

Zhou says all WTO members have the right of anti-dumping and anti-subsidy investigations, but to launch three such probes in just ten days is going too far.

Zhou Xiaoyan said, "This is an abuse of the trade remedy measures. When the US filed the investigation, it did not check carefully if these cases were tenable. We hope the US will fully abide by the WTO rules, and file probes according to the rules."

Zhou says the Chinese government is gravely concerned about the ongoing investigations. She says China reserves the right to appeal to the WTO if it finds the US practices have violated WTO rules in its investigations and arbitration.