The government said Monday it has launched an investigation into allegations China and South Korea are exporting iron wire at inappropriately low prices following complaints from Japanese producers.

The finance and trade ministries said they will judge whether to impose anti-dumping duties on the imports of hot-dip galvanized iron wire, mainly used for fences and other wire netting products as well as for tools to bind pulps. They are expecting to conclude the probe within a year.

The ministries said that four Japanese iron wire producers, whose output accounts for more than half of the domestic production, filed a request with the government on March 31 to impose anti-dumping tariffs on the imports from the two neighboring countries.

The Japanese producers have argued in their application that the alleged dumping by their Chinese and South Korean rivals has led to sharp falls in their sales and also made it difficult to raise prices despite rising raw material costs.

The companies have also said Japan's imports of hot-dip galvanized iron wire from China grew to 36,636 tons in fiscal 2019 from 21,008 tons in fiscal 2016 while those from South Korea increased to 11,235 tons from 8,889 tons during the same period.

Source: Japan Today