. /.RESTRICTEDWORLD TRADE
ORGANIZATIONG/SG/Q2/USA/5
19 May 1999
(99-2026)
Committee on Safeguards Original:  English
NOTIFICATION UNDER ARTICLE 12.1(A) OF THE AGREEMENT ON
SAFEGUARDS ON INITIATION OF AN INVESTIGATION
AND THE REASONS FOR IT
Questions Posed by the EUROPEAN COMMUNITY
Regarding the Notification of the UNITED STATES1
The following communication, dated 5 May 1999, has been received from the Permanent
Delegation of the European Commission.
_______________
According to the information provided in do cument G/SG/N/6/USA/6, the United States has
initiated an investigation into imports of certain steel wire rod.  The European Commission wouldappreciate it if the United States could:
- supplement their notification with factual data on the basis of which this investigation
has been opened, concerning notably:
(a) the rate and amount of increased imports (volume and quantity of imports of
this product per exporting country, since 1994);
(b) the serious injury claim, including information on the share of the domestic
market taken by increased imports as well as changes in the level of sales,production, productivity, capacity utilization, profits and losses and
employment.
(c) the alleged causal link and the existence of other factors which may have
contributed to the alleged serious injury.
- Explain the product coverage of the investigation.  Since the petitioners have
excluded certain special-quality steel wire rod from their remedy request, can the
United States confirm that the increased imports, serious injury and causality
determinations in this procedure will not include the excluded products?
                                                     
1 G/SG/N/6/USA/6G/SG/Q2/USA/5
Page 2
- Given that the factors for the establishment of the existence of injury are basically the
same ones as for in a safeguards procedure but the threshold of serious injury is
significantly higher, please explain how the United States has taken intoconsideration, as evidence for the initiation of this investigation, the recent
determinations, in several anti-dumping and anti-subsidy procedures concerning steelwire rod, that the US steel wire rod industry was not materially injured.
__________