Bethlehem Steel Corporation
For Immediate Release

January 20, 2000 -- The U.S. International Trade Commission and the U.S. Department of Commerce yesterday took actions which will help stabilize the U.S. market in cut-to-length carbon steel plate and cold-rolled carbon steel flat products. The Commerce and ITC actions will substantially remedy the injury to the domestic steel industry caused by unfairly traded imports.

The ITC by a unanimous vote of 5-0, found that the domestic cut-to-length carbon steel plate industry is materially injured due to dumped and subsidized imports from India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, and South Korea. (In the case of France, the ITC voted 4-1 that the domestic industry was injured by imports from France.) The affirmative vote will result in Commerce imposing antidumping and countervailing duties. Commerce found antidumping duty margins as high as 72.49 percent and countervailing duty rates as high as 47.71 percent.

The ITC's finding that the domestic industry is injured underscores the continuing crisis domestic steel producers and workers face. According to Curtis H. Barnette, Chairman and CEO of Bethlehem Steel Corporation, the ITC's affirmative vote confirms that the unfairly traded steel imports have injured the U.S. industry. This kind of action is essential to preserving a rules-based international trading system. Paul Wilhelm, President of U.S. Steel Group, a unit of USX Corp., stated that "today's vote will assist in restoring value to a market devastated by dumped and subsidized imports."

Since late 1997, the U.S. market has been the focus of dumped and subsidized steel imports from countries directly and indirectly affected by the Asian and South American financial crises. Imports of plate from Japan increased twenty-fold in 1998, ten-fold from Korea, and three-fold from Indonesia. Companies desperate for foreign exchange and companies excluded from their traditional export markets have turned to the United States. These unfairly traded imports have wreaked havoc on the U.S. market leading to the loss of more than 10,000 jobs, price suppression and multiple bankruptcies.

Cut-to-length plate is a flat steel product that is used in agricultural and construction equipment, bridges, barges and ships, railcars, and building construction.

In a separate event, the U.S. Department of Commerce today found that cold-rolled imports were dumped into the U.S. market at unfairly low prices. Commerce found dumping by very significant margins with respect to cold-rolled imports from Argentina, Brazil, Japan, Russia, South Africa, and Thailand, and that the Brazilian industry had benefited from countervailable subsidies. Antidumping duties of up to 80.67 percent and countervailing duties of up to 10.60 percent will be imposed if the ITC finds present or threatened injury to the U.S. producers next month. In its determination, Commerce concluded that critical circumstances existed with respect to imports from Brazil and Japan, making imports from these countries potentially subject to duties 90 days prior to Commerce's preliminary termination.