China opens dumping move against EU chemicals

China has told the European Commission that it will open complaint procedures for dumping against some European chemical companies, notably Belgian group Solvay, the newspaper Les Echos reported on Monday. The Chinese move, made a few days ago, targets products made from chlorine and in particular perchloroethylene and tetrachloroethylene, the report said. China was believed to be taking similar action against the United States, the report said. This is the second such anti-dumping procedure by China against European industry in less than two weeks. China has also launched a complaint against companies making unwelded pipes. One company targeted, French group Vallourec, has said that unwelded pipes account for only a small part of its business. The term dumping refers to a strategy of selling products at below cost to win market share and eliminate competitors. It is considered to be an unfair trade practice. Les Echos noted that the Chinese complaints came after European Union authorities proposed a customs duty averaging 47.0 percent against solar panels imported from China. EU authorities have also said that they intend to investigate practices by the Chinese manufacturers of telephone exchanges, Huawei and ZTE, which it suspects are selling their products at a loss.