EUROPEAN Union regulators opened three anti-dumping investigations into Chinese steel products Friday and imposed new duties on imports, following calls for action from industry that says thousands of jobs are at stake.

    Britain, France and Germany are among the countries to have asked the European Commission to help Europe’s steel industry, which is said to suffer from falling prices and cheap imports from China and Russia.

    On Friday, the European Commission announced investigations into whether seamless pipes, heavy plates and hot-rolled flat steel are sold into Europe at unfairly low prices. The EU already has nine ongoing investigations and nearly 40 trade defense measures in place on steel imports.

    It also announced provisional anti-dumping duties on cold-rolled flat steel from China and Russia. The duties range from 13.8 percent to 16 percent for the Chinese companies and from 19.8 percent to 26.2 percent for the Russian ones.

    (SD-Agencies)