US measures on shrimps against WTO rules

BEIJING -- China's Ministry of Commerce said Wednesday that measures taken by the United States over warm water shrimps from China are against World Trade Organization rules.

MOC spokesman Shen Danyang told a press conference that the US launched both anti-dumping and countervailing measures even though it saw China as a "non-market economy" and that it has no adequate evidence.

The measures are not only against WTO rules, but also domestic laws of the US, Shen said.

He urged the US to cautiously deal with the case in order to avoid the negative impact it could have on bilateral economic and trade relations and agricultural cooperation.

The US Department of Commerce said last month that it would conduct countervailing investigations on warm water shrimps imported from China, Ecuador, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand and Vietnam.

It announced on February 7 that its shrimp industry has been materially injured due to subsidies of those countries.

This is the first countervailing investigation of the US on China's agricultural products, and a new probe after it took anti-dumping measures on the same product for eight years, Shen said.

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