FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE	Contact:	Janel Causey
September 22, 2006		The PBN Company
		Tel.

WTO RULING ON PRACTICE OF ZEROING EXPECTED
TO BE OVERTURNED ON APPEAL

Washington DC —A World Trade Organization (WTO) panel ruling yesterday marked a temporary departure from recent decisions by the world trade body regarding the U.S. Department of Commerce’ (DOC) practice of “zeroing” in anti-dumping investigations. The panel decision, involving a dispute over certain carbon steel products and ball bearings from Japan, found that the U.S. did not violate international trade rules by using the practice of zeroing in most of the specific instances cited by Japanese lawyers.

Zeroing refers to the treatment of U.S. export sales when they are compared to “normal value” — or the foreign value — of similar goods. Goods that are sold for less than their normal value are considered “dumped.” However, when the Commerce Department finds transactions in the U.S. that occur at prices that are higher than normal value, it chooses to ignore those sales rather than averaging them into the final calculations. By reducing the impact of those transactions on the final calculations, the DOC’s practice of “zeroing” leads to artificially inflated dumping margins.

“CITAC believes that zeroing results in excessive dumping duties that hurt American consuming industries,” said Steve Alexander, CITAC executive director. “We are focusing on this issue because if the calculation of dumping duties is conducted fairly, consuming industries would no longer be hurt unnecessarily.”

The Japan decision announced September 20 was actually sent to the WTO secretariat for official translation sometime before August 15, and thus failed to take into account the important WTO Appellate Body decision ruling against zeroing made on that day,” noted CITAC Counsel Lewis Leibowitz. “There is little doubt that Japan will appeal this decision, and zeroing will likely once again be viewed unfavorably by the Appellate Body.”

CITAC is a coalition of companies and organizations committed to promoting a trade arena where U.S. consuming industries and their workers have access to global markets for imports that enhance the international competitiveness of American firms.

For additional information, visit citac.info or contact Janel Causey at The PBN Company at or .