WTO to Fault China on Raw-Material Exports

The Wall Street Journal Market Watch reports that The World Trade Organization will issue a preliminary report on Friday stating that China has no legal right to impose export restrictions on nine raw materials.

The market news is quoted as saying:

The quotas, license requirements and other measures on industrial ingredients such as zinc and coke, many vital for making steel, have been a key irritant in China’s simmering trade tensions with trading partners.

“This [case] is a punch against China’s trade policy,” says Simon Evenett, an economist at the University of St. Gallen in Switzerland. “It means you can’t use protectionism as a policy tool on natural resources.”

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