Companies from Shenzhen facing anti-dumping charges can breathe a little easier now that the local government has announced it is willing to pay a portion of their legal retainer fees. 

In a bid to safeguard local export companies' legal rights and encourage them to actively answer to anti-dumping charges filed abroad, the government has set up a special fund and introduced a new guideline for its proper allocation.

Sponsored by the city's World Trade Organization Affairs Office, an organization under the Shenzhen Foreign Trade and Economic Co-operation Bureau, the fund has amassed more than 10 million yuan (US$1.2 million) from local trade associations, chambers of commerce and individual companies. 

According to the fund's distribution guideline, newly registered cases could have 10 to 30 per cent of their legal fees reimbursed without exceeding 1 million yuan (US$120,482). An individual company fighting an anti-dumping lawsuit would receive a maximum of 500,000 yuan (US$60,240). The subsidy for companies involved in anti-dumping review cases can reach a total amount of 100,000 yuan (US$12,048). 

"The fund aims to encourage local companies to aggressively strive for their legal rights in the anti-dumping cases through legal actions," said Zhang Jinsheng, director of the WTO Affairs Office. 

"Any qualified company that finalized anti-dumping cases last year or began a new case this year could apply for the subsidies from the fund," he noted. 

To receive these amounts, applicants are required to prove that their prices for export are reasonable - no more than 10 per cent less than prices for other export goods made by the city's manufacturers in the same category. 

According to the office, companies including leading TV-makers Skyworth, Konka and TCL as well as automobile windshield-maker Xinyi Glass have submitted applications.

The city became a manufacturing center when numerous factories moved across the border from Hong Kong in the early 1980s to take advantage of incentive policies, cheap labor, and low land and operating costs.

The office estimates the city was faced with an anti-dumping case every week on average last year, which hurt its export industry. Some of the companies have been reluctant to answer the lawsuits because they usually require too much time and money.

(China Daily February 16, 2004)