China is appealing to the WTO over EU tariffs on fasteners

On January 31, the EU's final ruling on China's fastener dumping litigation came out, and from February 1, some Chinese fastener companies imposed a maximum of 85% punitive tariffs (the average tax rate is 77.5%).

For the EU's trade protection practices, the Ministry of Commerce has issued a notice on December 29 last year to investigate the dumping of fastener products exported to China from the EU, and more than 50 enterprises have responded to the lawsuit. At present, Europe's annual fastener exports to China are $180 million, concentrated in automotive bolts.

As a senior executive of China's largest fastener companies, Tu Zhiqing, secretary of Jin Billion Industry (601102.SH), said in an interview with China Business News yesterday: "This is a life-to-death threshold, and the EU has pushed many Chinese fastener companies to the edge of the cliff."

In fact, since October last year, dozens of fastener companies in Jiaxing, Zhejiang province, have failed to sell a screw to the EU. On the one hand, the export pressure brought by the global financial crisis, on the other hand, the EU's high tariffs, for Chinese fastener companies, Tu Zhiqing's words are not alarmist.

The EU's ruling was based on the results of an anti-dumping investigation that lasted 1 1/2 years. In 2006