South Korea's trade commission is widely expected to recommend imposing punitive duties on Chinese steel beam imports as it has decided price dumping of Chinese products has caused significant damage to local manufacturers, officials said Friday.
  

An official probe by the commission has found that the average price of Chinese H-shaped structural steel beams in the local market had plunged 15.3 percent on-year in 2013 while that of locally produced products dropped 10 percent even though Chinese imports were already priced significantly lower than their South Korean competitors, according to an official from the trade commission.
  

An interim report from the probe, published in February, has noted such price-cutting of Chinese imports may have caused serious and actual damage to local manufacturers, adding that H-shaped steel beam imports from China spiked 28.6 percent on-year in 2013, the official said.
  

The formal investigation on Chinese steel beams began in July 2014 following a petition from two local manufacturers, who requested that punitive duties of up to 21.6 percent be imposed on Chinese imports.
  

H-shaped structural steel beams are used widely in building large structures. The commission earlier said the local market for H-shaped steel beams came to about 2.25 trillion won ($2 billion) in 2013 with Chinese manufacturers supplying some 29 percent of the total. (Yonhap)