For Immediate Release

Public Relations Division
Public Affairs Department
1170 Eighth Avenue
Bethlehem, PA 18016-7699
(610) 694-3711 - Phone
(610) 694-1509 - Fax

June 21, 1999 -- The U.S. Department of Commerce today initiated the sixteen antidumping and countervailing duty complaints filed by the domestic steel industry against unfairly traded cold-rolled steel imports from 12 countries. Imports of cold-rolled steel have been traded unfairly and are continuing to disrupt the U.S. market. Antidumping complaints, with alleged margins as high as 122 percent, were filed against Argentina, Brazil, China, Indonesia, Japan, Russia, South Africa, Slovakia, Taiwan, Thailand, Turkey and Venezuela. Countervailing duty complaints, with alleged rates as high as 101 percent, were filed against Brazil, Indonesia, Thailand and Venezuela. Combined antidumping margins and countervailing duty rates for individual countries range from 17% to 223%.

The American steel industry is pleased with the Commerce Department's decision to initiate trade cases against the full list of countries named in these suits, and urges the Department to expedite its investigations of these cases as it has done in prior investigations. Expediting these cases is warranted as the industry has been, and continues to be, seriously injured by the unprecedented levels of unfairly traded steel imports.

The U.S. market continues to be extremely depressed by dumped and heavily subsidized imports. This has caused prices to plummet and forced continued production cut-backs by U.S. companies. Our responsibility to our employees, our shareholders and our communities requires that we use all remedies available under the law to prevent further injury from all unfairly traded imports.