The Dispute Settlement Body of the World Trade Organization issued a panel report on Friday, rejecting certain key anti-dumping measures of the European Union (EU) imposed on footwear imports from China.

In particular, the report found Article 9(5) of the EU's Basic Anti-Dumping Regulation inconsistent with its WTO obligations.

The rejected claim states that, in cases involving imports from Non-Market Economy countries, the anti-dumping duty shall be specified for the supplying country concerned and not for each individual supplier.

In this case, the Dispute Settlement Body supported China's claim that applicable WTO rules require that an individual margin and duty be determined and specified for each known exporter and producer and not for the supplying country as a whole.

In addition, the Dispute Settlement also ruled that the EU had acted inconsistently with the Anti-Dumping Agreement in some aspects of the original investigation and expiry review.

China welcomes the WTO panel report.

The Permanent Mission of China to the WTO said "China is appreciative of the fact that the Panel has reinforced its prior findings that the European Union's practice of individual treatment or "IT" is inconsistent with the WTO Anti-Dumping Agreement and the European Union's obligations as a long standing Member of the WTO."

"China considers the panel report to be a contribution towards consolidating the rules-based system that all WTO Members have pledged to foster," the statement said, adding that in this spirit "China looks forward to the full compliance of the Panel's recommendation by the European Union with regard to the IT practice."

The statement also noted that while the EU's anti-dumping measures on footwear expired on April 1, 2011, "China expects that the European Union will not repeat the violations of the Anti-Dumping Agreement found by the Panel."

China and the EU started consultations over the latter's anti-dumping measures on Chinese footwear on March, 2010. In the following month, China requested the Dispute Settlement Body to establish the panel, after the consultations failed to resolve the dispute.

According to WTO Dispute Settlement Procedures, the two parties still have 60 days to appeal to the Appellate Body.

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