China appeals against WTO steel ruling

China has appealed against a World Trade Organization (WTO) ruling which found that it had imposed illegal anti-dumping duties on US electrical steel imports, the trade arbiter said on Friday. The decision by China to fight the WTO's findings from June 15 concerns "certain issues of law and legal interpretation," a WTO statement said. The dispute dates back to September 2010 when Washington accused China of breaching trade rules by not providing sufficient evidence for imposing duties. The WTO panel tasked with investigating the alleged abuses found that Chinese authorities had "improperly resorted to facts available in calculating the dumping and subsidy rates" in certain cases, and "that the manner in which (China) applied facts available was inconsistent" with trade rules. The WTO also agreed with US claims that China "did not comply with the 'objective examination' and 'positive evidence' requirements" in its analysis of the effect that US imports of grain-oriented flat-rolled electrical steel were having on its market.