Chinese steel products may become the next target of European Union dumping charges, following on the heels of footwear exporters, which the EU earlier said damaged its shoe-making industry.

Eurofer, a Brussels-based organization representing European iron and steelmaking industries, recently threatened to launch an anti-dumping case against Chinese products "unless the country curbs its rising export volumes".

The information was confirmed by the China Iron and Steel Association (CISA) and the China Chamber of Metals, Minerals and Chemical Importers and Exporters, which represent Chinese steel makers and exporters respectively. But they have not received any formal complaints from the European side.

The Chinese government may lower tax rebate rates on steel products this year in a move to slow down the export growth, CISA Vice-Chairman Luo Bingsheng told a conference earlier this week.

European steelmakers claimed that China's increasing steel exports to the EU market had hurt their market share.

Gordon Moffat, director-general of the European Confederation of Iron & Steel Industries, said "we saw an enormous surge of Chinese steel into the European market last year".

Statistics from the EU side show that the economic block's steel imports from China totaled 3.8 million tons in the first nine months of 2006, up from 1.2 million tons in the same period of 2005.

The US steel industry, led by US Steel Corp and the United Steel Workers Union, is also calling for anti-dumping investigation or countervailing probe into Chinese steel products.

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