The Budapest Business Journal (www.bbj.hu) reported that the European Union in early March imposed a five-year tariff on a welding product from China.

The tariff was designed to shield Austria's Plansee Metall GmbH from cheaper imports, and imposed duties of as much as 63.5 percent on tungsten electrodes, used for welding in industries such as aerospace, automobiles, shipbuilding and oil and natural gas, punish Chinese exporters for selling in Europe below domestic prices or below the cost of production, a practice known as "dumping."

China's share of the EU tungstenelectrode market climbed to 76 percent in 2005 from 22 percent in 2001, according to the commission, the EU's trade authority.