A trade representative of the Baoshan Steel Group told the reporter that since the instigation of the lawsuit by the 11 American enterprises in last October, the company has, immediately with lawyers engaged, started investigation on the case. And they are quite confident of winning in the case for it's groundless in the US's point of view. It is also told that the other four companies out of the rest five are now collecting material to prepare for the response to the charge.

It's reported that up to last August, when the volume of the imported steels of the United States exceeded US$10 billion, an increase by 29 percent over the same period of the previous year, it had stirred up rejection and panic among the US enterprises. However, the United States is the largest importing country of the Chinese steel, which took up more than 21 percent of its total steel export.

Also reported is that the five steel enterprises will make their respective responses to the charge for one major reason in anti-dumping case abroad is "non-marketing economy behavior". Separate response won't give the opponents any handle to seize on.

However, in the viewpoint of some specialists, though the export amount of Chinese steel has been on the increase but the volume has witnessed a slight decrease as the customs statistics indicate. Under the circumstances, should the six enterprises lose in the lawsuit it would mean that the Chinese steel enterprises would not only suffer greatly in their steel exportation but also lose so huge a market as the United States. Therefore, the Chinese enterprises should strengthen coordination in regulating themselves, readjust the structure of their products, set up an early warning mechanism for steel products and be ready to make alteration of prices at any moment so as to make themselves adapted to the changeable international market.

(People's Daily 01/04/2001)