Report of the Appellate Body

Summary

INTRODUCTION

1. China appeals certain issues of law and legal interpretations developed in the Panel Report, United States – Definitive Anti-Dumping and Countervailing Duties on Certain Products from China (the "Panel Report"). The Panel was established on 20 January 2009 to consider a complaint by China with respect to definitive anti-dumping duties and countervailing duties imposed by the United States on each of the following four products from China: (i) circular welded carbon quality steel pipe ("CWP"); (ii) light-walled rectangular pipe and tube ("LWR"); (iii) laminated woven sacks ("LWS"); and (iv) certain new pneumatic off-the-road tyres ("OTR").

2. In respect of each of the products, an anti-dumping and a countervailing duty investigation were initiated in tandem in July or August 2007. the four anti-dumping investigations, the United States Department of Commerce (the "USDOC") treated China as a non-market economy ("NME") country for purposes of determining normal value and calculating the margins of dumping. For each product, the USDOC issued its final anti-dumping and countervailing duty determinations on the same day, in either June or July 2008. Pursuant to these determinations, the USDOC imposed definitive anti-dumping and countervailing duties on the four investigated products from China.

3. Among the determinations made by the USDOC in the four countervailing duty determinations were the following. In the CWP and the LWR investigations, the USDOC determined that the government provision of hot-rolled steel ("HRS") to certain producers through State-owned enterprises ("SOE"s) constituted countervailable subsidies, that private prices in China could not be used as benchmarks to determine the existence and amount of benefit conferred by such subsidies and that, as a result, it was necessary to resort to alternative benchmarks in conducting its benefit determination.