December 10 MetalBiz--Ministry of Commerce issued No.99 announcement of 2009 on December 10, 2009, which released the anti-dumping and anti-countervailing investigations on imported oriented electric steel from US as well as the preliminary ruling of the anti-dumping-investigation on oriented electric steel from Russia.

The principal from Ministry of Commerce Fair Trading Bureau said that it is the first time for China to launch anti-subsidy investigation on imported products, but also the first anti-dumping and anti-countervailing investigation on imported products from one country at the same time, that is, the so called dual-anti-investigation. In the investigation process of the case, China’s investigation authorities comply with China’s law and WTO rules, insist on the principles of fairness, reasonableness, procedure justness and transparency and make preliminary ruling in accordance with laws and facts.

Investigating authorities initially believed that the oriented electric steel imported from US and Russia existed anti-dumping, which resulted in a substantial damage to China’s domestic oriented electric steel industry, so they determined to impose corresponding margin on oriented electric steel from US and Russia since December 11, 2009. US companies’ dumping rate and subsidy rate is 10.7%-25% and 11.7%-12.0% respectively, while dumping rate from Russia’s companies stood at 4.6%-25%. Investigating authorities will make objective and fair ruling in accordance with the law based on the further investigation results.