OECD agreement to cover four

The OECD is to examine the creation of new legislation covering the EU, Japan, South Korea and Norway. By drawing up a simple document with the existing shipbuilding bill appended, the four can bring it into force without going through the signature and ratification process again, says the OECD.

US trade representatives have not objected to such a move and it will be explored with the four parties ahead of a meeting on March 17/18. The injurious-pricing clause would outlaw `dumping` (selling below the building cost) but the American Shipbuilders` Association believes that it would be almost impossible to prove, and even harder to enforce.

However, the OECD says any yard could ask the relevant competent authority, such as the EU Commission, to act if it thought its competitors were dumping. Once the evidence is put before the panel it would be required to give a binding decision within a year.

Jose Perez, president of The Committee of European Union Shipbuilders` Associations, says that current Korean prices do not represent dumping in the classical meaning of the word, it is more to do with the fall in the currency. “If the OECD agreement had been in force since 1995, what has happened with Korean prices would still have happened,” he says.