Published: Tuesday, 3 Nov 2009 | 11:02 PM ET

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The United States said on Tuesday it set preliminary duties ranging from 2 percent to 438 percent on hundreds of millions of dollars of imported steel wire decking from China to offset government subsidies.

It was the latest in a growing list of actions against imports from China, the United States' second-largest trading partner. Industry filed five new complaints against China in September, believed to be a record for a single month.

Since January, the Commerce Department has launched at least one dozen investigations into charges Chinese companies receive government subsidies that allow them to sell more cheaply than U.S. competitors or "dump" goods in the United States at unfairly low prices regardless of profit or loss.

The preliminary decision on Tuesday concerns welded-wire rack decking, a product used in industrial and other commercial storage rack systems.

U.S. companies imported an estimated $317 million of such decking in 2008, an increase of 49 percent from 2006.

The Commerce Department said it set countervailing duty rates of 2.02 percent for Dalian Huameilong Metal Products and 3.13 percent for Dalian Eastfound Metal Products. Both cooperated in its investigation.

But a significant number of Chinese companies did not complete the U.S. government's questionnaire and those companies were given an adverse countervailing duty rate of 437.73 percent "for non-responsiveness," the department said.

US Companies Seeking Duties

Other Chinese companies not formally targeted in the case were given a preliminary countervailing duty of 2.58 percent.

In a related investigation, U.S. wire decking producers AWP Industries, ITC Manufacturing, J&L Wire Cloth, Nashville Wire Products and Wireway Husky have also asked the Commerce Department to impose anti-dumping duties of 143 percent to 316 percent on the Chinese product.

The Commerce Department will issue its preliminary decision on the dumping charges in mid-November and then make a final decision on duty levels in later months.

The U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC) must determine whether U.S. producers have been harmed, or are threatened with harm, by the imports for duties to become final.

Importers are required to post bonds or cash deposits equal to the preliminary duties.

The ITC will vote on Friday whether there is sufficient evidence for the U.S. Commerce Department to proceed with three other probes into allegedly unfair pricing practices by China and other foreign suppliers.

Those cases involve coated paper from China and Indonesia, steel fasteners from China and Taiwan and sodium and potassium phosphate salts from China.

Attorneys representing Asia Pulp and Paper and U.S. importer Global Paper Solutions said on Tuesday the coated paper case was "without merit" and urged the ITC to reject it when it votes on Friday.

The ITC also will decide later this month if there is enough evidence to justify an anti-dumping probe of seamless refined copper pipe and tube from China and Mexico.

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