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BEIJING, May 24-- German Vice Chancellor and Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel said here on Wednesday that new anti-dumping rules of the European Union (EU) must accord with the regulations of the World Trade Organizations. Gabriel made the remarks when meeting the press together with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi after they held talks. Gabriel said China should have automatically gained market economy status at the end of last year according to Article 15 of the accession protocol signed when China joined the WTO in 2001. All parties should fulfil their obligation, he said. Germany will make efforts in the EU so that the EU trade remedy measures do not merely focus on whether a target country has a market economy status, but on whether it has dumping practices or actions that go against the WTO rules. "We should not discriminate against any country, including China," said Gabriel at the press briefing. He said the stance of Germany is very clear that the new EU anti-dumping rules must accord with WTO regulations. The EU countries agreed on May 3 to new anti-dumping rules with new methodology to calculate dumping, which analysts say is another way of extending the surrogate country approach wherein WTO members use costs of production in a third country to calculate the value of products. Under the new methodology, when "significant distortion" is recognized in an exporting country, the EU could use the costs of production and sale prices in a country with similar levels of economic development or "international" costs and prices reference in anti-dumping cases. | 
