China's hackles raised by EU steel dumping investigation

BEIJING (Reuters) - China's commerce ministry has expressed its concern over European Union's anti-dumping investigations into Chinese steel products and said that trade frictions should be solved through dialogue.

The European Union on Friday launched investigations into whether Chinese seamless pipes, heavy plates and hot-rolled flat steel were being imported from China at unfairly low prices and announced provisional anti-dumping duties on cold-rolled flat steel from China and Russia.

"China hopes the European Commission will strictly abide by World Trade Organisation (WTO) rules, show prudence and restraint and use trade remedy tools in accordance with the law," the Ministry of Commerce (MOFCOM) said in a notice posted on its website (http://www.mofcom.gov.cn).

Chinese steel exports rose by 19.9 percent to 112.4 million tonnes last year, providing a lifeline for companies contending with falling domestic demand and a crippling capacity glut that has sent prices to multi-decade lows.

MOFCOM said that overcapacity is a global problem for the steel sector and the problems should be solved through dialogue and cooperation, adding that the Chinese government is willing to hold talks with fellow WTO members on the subject.

The China Iron and Steel Association warned late last month that Chinese steel producers were increasingly at risk of anti-dumping moves. It said that Chinese steel exports were the subject of 37 investigations worldwide in 2015, equalling the total number over the preceding two years.

(Reporting by David Stanway; Editing by David Goodman)