SEOUL, Nov 1: South Korea urged the World Trade Organization to prevent its anti-dumping rules from being abused on Thursday, one week before key WTO talks open.

Hwang Doo-Yun, Seoul’s minister for trade, lamented the anti-dumping actions for free trade have now become a convenient tool for protectionists.

The critism came as South Korea has been stuck in a trade row with the United States over steel goods and the European Union over shipbuilding.

The abuse of anti-dumping action poses a serious threat to global free trade, Hwang said in a meeting with foreign journalists in Seoul.

He attributed the abusive anti-dumping actions to ambigious and loose rules set up by the WTO under the previous Uruguay round of trade talks.

At the new round, we need to clarify and improve the WTO anti-dumping rules, the South Korean top trade negotiator said.

Ministers from the 142 WTO member states are scheduled to meet in the Qatari capital Doha on November 9-13 with an agenda to launch a new round of multilataral trade liberalization talks.

South Korea, a major Asian steel exporter, is angry at US trade panel rulings which could lead to anti-dumping curbs against foreign steel imports.

The US International Trade Commission ruled last Monday foreign steel products hurt the US steel industry. The panel is to forward remedies against foreign goods to US President George W. Bush on December 19.

Seoul is considering challenging what it calls an “unfair” US move by approaching a WTO disputes panel, while seeking a joint campaign with Japan and the EU against it.

South Korea, which has the world’s largest ship building industry, is also at loggerheads with the EU, whose shipbuilders argue South Korean rivals receive illegal state subsidies and sweep orders at below cost prices.

Seoul has flatly denied the EU allegation, saying its shipyards are more competitive because of low costs and the depreciation of the won currency. —AFP