Europe Panel Probes Japanese Dumping of Semiconductors

The European Economic Community Commission said today that it is investigating charges that Japanese companies are selling semiconductors at unfairly low prices--a process known as dumping--in the European market.

The commission said the investigation was opened after claims by the European electronics industry that Japanese manufacturers were selling a new type of microchip called DRAMs in Europe at below-cost prices. DRAM stands for dynamic random access memories.

A finding of predatory pricing would allow the commission to impose an extra duty on Japanese microchip imports to offset the loss of sales by domestic companies.

The industry complained that the imports of Japanese DRAMs have increased from 5 million in 1984 to more than 29 million in 1986 and now account for nearly 95% of the European market.