The World Trade Organization (WTO) said on Monday that new anti-dumping investigations initiated and new final anti-dumping measures adopted by WTO members continued to decline in the second half of last year.

The year 2005 also marked the fourth consecutive year of declines in new initiations of anti-dumping investigations, and the second consecutive year of declines in new anti-dumping measures, according to the WTO Secretariat.

From July to December 2005, 16 WTO members reported initiating a total of 82 new investigations, compared with 106 initiations in the corresponding period of 2004.

A total of 15 members applied 76 new final anti-dumping measures during the July-December 2005 period, compared with 93 new measures applied during the same period 2004.

Twenty-seven of the 82 new initiations were opened by developed members, and 27 of the 76 new final measures were applied by developed members, during the second half of 2005.

This compares with 42 new initiations opened and 24 new measures applied by developed members during the second half of 2004.

Among members reporting new initiations during July-December 2005, the member reporting the highest number was China, with 13 initiations. The second-highest number of initiations was reported by Argentina and India (11 each).

These were followed by the European Communities (9), the United States (8), and Australia and South Africa (5 each).

Meanwhile, China remains the most frequent subject of new investigations, with 33 initiations directed at its exports during July-December 2005, up from 24 during the corresponding period of 2004.

Malaysia was the second most frequent subject, with seven initiations of new investigations directed at its exports, an increase from four during the second half of 2004.

The products that were the most frequent subject of the reported new investigations during July-December 2005 were in the chemicals sector (17 initiations), followed by base metals (15 initiations) and plastics (12 initiations).

India reported 10 new measures for the second half of 2005, registering more than a 50 percent decline from the 22 new measures it reported for the second half of 2004.

Products exported from China remained the most frequent subject of new measures, accounting for 22 of the new measures reported for the second half of 2005, down slightly from the 25 reported for the corresponding period of 2004.

The data reported above are based on semi-annual reports of the WTO's total 149 members to the WTO Committee on anti-dumping Practices.