EEC to Probe ‘Dumping’

The European Economic Community said Thursday that it will investigate industry complaints that Japan was “dumping” semiconductors in Europe, that is, selling them at unfairly low prices.

The announcement was expected to add heat to European-Japanese trade tensions, which intensified last week when Britain threatened to take trade actions aimed at forcing Japan to open up its market more quickly.

The investigation will be limited to a type of computer-memory chip known as EPROM, or electronically programmable read-only memory. The European market for this type of semiconductor is about $160 million a year, according to European industry estimates.

The executive commission of the EEC said it had seen “sufficient elements of proof” to justify the inquiry.