The Tribunal’s inquiry is conducted pursuant to the Special Import Measures Act (SIMA) as a result of the initiation of dumping and subsidizing investigations by the Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA).

The Tribunal is an independent quasi-judicial body that reports to Parliament through the Minister of Finance. It hears cases on dumped and subsidized imports, safeguard complaints, complaints about federal government procurement and appeals of customs and excise tax rulings. When requested by the federal government, the Tribunal also provides advice on other economic, trade and tariff matters.

On March 11, 2026, the Tribunal will determine whether there is a reasonable indication that the alleged dumping and subsidizing have caused injury or retardation, or are threatening to cause injury, as these words are defined in SIMA.

“If so, the CBSA will continue its investigations and, by April 10, 2026, will make preliminary determinations. If these preliminary determinations indicate that there has been dumping or subsidizing, the CBSA will then continue its investigations and, concurrently, the Tribunal will initiate a final injury inquiry.”

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CHICAGO (Reuters) – Even though many doctors see need for improvement, surgical robots are poised for big gains in operating rooms around the world.

Within five years, one in three U.S. surgeries – more than double current levels – is expected to be performed with robotic systems, with surgeons sitting at computer consoles guiding mechanical arms. Companies developing new robots also plan to expand their use in India, China and other emerging markets.

Robotic surgery has been long dominated by pioneer Intuitive Surgical Inc, which has more than 3,600 of its da Vinci machines in hospitals worldwide and said last week the number of procedures that used them jumped by 16 percent in the second quarter compared to a year earlier.

The anticipated future growth – and perceived weaknesses of the current generation of robots – is attracting deep-pocketed rivals, including Medtronic Inc and a startup backed by Johnson & Johnson and Google. Developers of the next wave aim to make the robots less expensive, more nimble and capable of performing more types of procedures, company executives and surgeons told Reuters.

Although surgical robots run an average of $1.5 million and entail ongoing maintenance expenses, insurers pay no more for surgeries that utilize the systems than for other types of minimally-invasive procedures, such as laparoscopy.

Still, most top U.S. hospitals for cancer treatment, urology, gynecology and gastroenterology have made the investment. The robots are featured prominently in hospital marketing campaigns aimed at attracting patients, and new doctors are routinely trained in their use.

Surgical robots are used in hernia repair, bariatric surgery, hysterectomies and the vast majority of prostate removals in the United States, according to Intuitive Surgical data.

Doctors say they reduce fatigue and give them greater precision.

But robot-assisted surgery can take more of the surgeon’s time than traditional procedures, reducing the number of operations doctors can perform. That’s turned off some like Dr. Helmuth Billy.

Billy was an early adopter of Intuitive’s da Vinci system 15 years ago. But equipping its arms with instruments slowed him down. He rarely uses it now.

“I like to do five operations a day,” Billy said. “If I have to constantly dock and undock da Vinci, it becomes cumbersome.”

SURGEONS’ WISH LIST

To gain an edge, new robots will need to outperform laparoscopic surgery, said Dr. Dmitry Oleynikov, who heads a robotics task force for the Society of American Gastrointestinal and Endoscopic Surgeons.

Surgeons told Reuters they want robots to provide a way to feel the body’s tissue remotely, called haptic sensing, and better camera image quality.

New systems also will need to be priced low enough to entice hospitals and outpatient surgical centers that have not yet invested in a da Vinci, as well as convince those with established robotic programs to consider a second vendor or switching suppliers altogether.

“That is where competitors can differentiate,” said Vik Srinivasan of the Advisory Board Co, a research and consulting firm that advises hospitals.

Developers say they are paying attention. Verb Surgical, the J&J-Google venture that is investing about $250 million in its project, said creating a faster and easier-to-use system is a priority.

Verb also envisions a system that is “always there, always on,” enabling the surgeon to use the robot for parts of a procedure as needed, said Chief Executive Scott Huennekens.

Intuitive said it too is looking to improve technology at a reasonable cost, but newcomers will face the same challenges.

“As competitors come in, they are going to have to work within that same framework,” CEO Gary Guthart said in an interview.

Device maker Medtronic has said it expects to launch its surgical robot before mid-2018 and will start in India. Others developing surgical robots include TransEnterix Inc and Canada’s Titan Medical Inc.

An RBC Capital Markets survey found that U.S. surgeons expect about 35 percent of operations will involve robots in five years, up from 15 percent today.

J&J, which hopes to be second to market with a product from Verb, has said it sees robotics as a multibillion-dollar market opportunity. Huennekens said Verb’s surgical robot will differ from another Google robotics effort, the driverless car, in one important aspect.

“There will always be a surgeon there,” he said.

(Reporting by Susan Kelly; Editing by Michele Gershberg and Lisa Girion)

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The deaths were all in the southeastern province of Fujian, where the typhoon made landfall, the civil affairs ministry said in a statement on its website.

Total economic damage has been put at 900 million yuan ($134.60 million), with 16,000 hectares (40,000 acres) of crops destroyed and more than 900 houses wrecked, the ministry said.

In Taiwan, the storm caused at least three deaths and more than 300 injuries.

The storm is expected to worsen already severe flooding in parts of central and eastern China as its remnants slowly make their way inland.

Typhoons are common at this time of year in the South China Sea, picking up strength over warm waters and dissipating over land.

Typhoons used to kill many people in China but the government now enforces evacuations and takes precautions well in advance, which has helped save many lives.

 (Reporting by Ben Blanchard; Editing by Robert Birsel)

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RAYONG, Thailand (Reuters) – Everywhere you look on Thailand’s Amata industrial estate in Rayong you see signs in Chinese. It’s a similar story just along the coast in the tourist resort of Pattaya, where Mandarin is increasingly visible alongside English and Russian.

As China’s economy slows, its investors are looking abroad for growth and Thailand, home to one of the world’s largest ethnic Chinese minorities and a gateway to Southeast Asia’s 600 million consumers, is a hot investment destination in everything from industry to condominiums.

“Thailand is usually the first stop for Chinese tourists and investors,” said Xu Gen Luo, who runs the Thai-Chinese Rayong Industrial Zone, about 200 km (120 miles) south east of Bangkok. Dozens of new Chinese-owned solar, rubber and industrial manufacturing plants have opened in the zone since 2012.

“Thailand’s investment environment, especially its investment promotion policies, are among the best worldwide,” he said, adding that labour costs were higher in China.

Since a May 2014 coup, Thailand and China have drawn closer diplomatically and militarily as the ruling generals seek to counterbalance the country’s cooling ties with Washington.

Chinese investors have found a warm welcome in an economy that has seen investment crimped by a decade of political turmoil, and where the junta has struggled to revive exports and domestic demand in the two years since seizing power.

Investment pledges from China jumped fivefold in the first quarter from a year earlier to 5.7 billion baht ($163 million), from just 1.1 billion baht, giving China the third largest investment slate during the period as Chinese firms raced to meet a tax break deadline and U.S. investors held back.

That was still some way behind Japan, which pledged 15.6 billion baht. Japan and China jostle for influence in Southeast Asia and Tokyo has long been Thailand’s largest investor, with several large car plants accounting for much of the investment.

“LOST IN THAILAND”

But Chinese investment is growing strongly, in part due to Beijing’s policy of encouraging manufacturers to shift production abroad to deal with industrial overcapacity at home.

“What we’ve seen so far in Chinese investment into Thailand is small compared to what’s coming,” said Joe Horn-Phathanothai, chief executive of Strategy613, a strategic advisor focussed on Chinese and Thai corporate investments.

“Hand-in-hand with the slowdown in China we’ll see an increase in the number of deals the Chinese do abroad.”

Last year China was the fourth biggest foreign investor in Thailand, behind Japan, the United States and Singapore.

Tourist numbers have also jumped, helped by the huge success in China of the 2012 slapstick comedy “Lost in Thailand”. About 7.9 million Chinese visited the “Land of Smiles” last year, up 71 percent from 2014, when unrest in Bangkok that preceded the coup scared tourists away, and Thailand expects more this year.

There has been no slowdown in the number of tourists due to the economic deceleration in China, helped by the growth of budget airlines, tour operators say.

“Our products are relatively cheap. We have good food and culture and no political problems with their government, unlike Japan and Taiwan,” Ronnarong Chewinsiriamnuai, president of the Thai-Chinese Tourism Alliance Association.

Thailand is expecting a record 33 million tourists in 2016, with China providing the bulk of the increase from the record set in 2015 of just below 30 million.

“ONE BELT, ONE ROAD”

Xu expects the number of Chinese firms at his park – jointly developed by China’s Holley Group and Thai industrial estate developer Amata Corp <AMATA.BK> – to increase to about 100 this year, from 75 currently, and to 500 in the next five years.

In March, China’s Trina Solar <TSL.N>, the world’s No. 1 solar panel maker, opened a manufacturing facility there.

Moving to Thailand can also help companies in industries such as solar and chemicals sidestep anti-dumping measures, industry experts said.

“China is facing trade barriers from many countries, particularly on solar, so many Chinese firms are coming to invest in Thailand,” said Visnu Limwibul, chairman of a Thai electronics and telecommunications industry group.

State-owned Gang Yan Diamond Tools (Thailand), which makes precision manufacturing blades, followed Beijing’s “One Belt, One Road” policy to rebuild ancient Silk Road trade links with Asia and Europe and set up in Thailand in 2014.

“When we first came, we were concerned about the political situation and social instability. We are still concerned now,” said board chairman Zhao Gang, but added the strength of the Chinese business community in Thailand helped overcome those concerns.

China and Thailand are discussing cooperation on the Thai section of a rail project under the “One Belt, One Road” plan that would eventually connect Kunming in southwest China with Singapore, but have to date failed to agree on terms.

As the expatriate Chinese community grows and more Chinese look for holiday homes in Thailand, real estate investment is on the rise.

Bundit Sirithunyhong runs the Suttangrak Group, which has just joined with Chinese firms to develop housing projects worth 5 billion baht ($140 million) to sell as time-shares to Chinese buyers.

“I think they are not just investing in real estate, but starting to use Thailand as a base for business in Southeast Asia,” he said. “Here they can stay and work as their second homes. It’s a step further in business expansion.”

 (Additional reporting by Pairat Temphairojana, Jutarat Skulpichetrat and Simon Webb in BANGKOK and Kevin Yao in BEIJING; Editing by Simon Webb and Alex Richardson)

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More than 300,000 electric cars were sold in China last year, Miao Wei, the head of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology told reporters on the sidelines of the annual meeting of parliament on Sunday.

The reliability, mileage and lifespan of electric batteries needs improvement and China needs to speed up the installation of electric car charging stations, Miao said.

(Reporting by Ben Blanchard; Additional reporting by Kathy Chen; Writing by Sue-Lin Wong)

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NEW DELHI/BEIJNG (Reuters) – Indian conglomerate Mahindra & Mahindra is re-thinking the strategy for its loss-making Korean automaker Ssangyong Motor Co, tapping the brakes on its planned push into the United States to focus instead on China.

Mahindra’s Executive Director Pawan Goenka told Reuters the company was in talks with Chinese firms to enter into a contract manufacturing agreement or form a joint venture to build Ssangyong vehicles in China, where it currently exports to from Korea and sells through a local distributor.

Mahindra rescued Ssangyong from near-insolvency in 2011, acquiring a stake of just over 70 percent, but South Korea’s No. 4 car maker has struggled to break even, reporting a net loss of 61.9 billion won ($51.6 million) for 2015, although it made a net profit in the final quarter.

Making cars in China would mean Ssangyong could lower its prices there, and Goenka said it made sense to focus on expanding sales in an existing market before going to the United States and building a distribution network from the ground up.

“China is easier to look at right now because Ssangyong already has a presence there. We have some traction and need to ramp up our products for local manufacturing,” Goenka told Reuters.

“China is here and now, U.S. is the future. We are still deciding what it takes for us to launch in the U.S.”

Boosting overseas sales has taken on a greater urgency for Ssangyong due to slumping sales in Russia, once its biggest export market contributing more than 20 percent of total shipments.    Exports made up only a third of Ssangyong’s total sales of144,764 vehicles in 2015, down from more than half in 2014, when it sold 141,047 vehicles, and substantially short of its target for exports of 60 percent of total sales.

Also, the Korean car maker does not currently have a vehicle that meets U.S. regulatory requirements, Goenka said.

“The U.S. is not somewhere you can go in without significant investment in product and brand development. Given the various priorities we have, the U.S. is now somewhat on the back burner, but not stopped,” Goenka said.

CHINA CHALLENGE

Goenka, who is also chairman of Ssangyong, did not give details about which Chinese companies it was talking to.

Under Mahindra’s ownership, Ssangyong is investing nearly $1billion in refreshing its product line-up. Mahindra hopes the launch of its new compact sport-utility vehicle (SUV) Tivoli, which has seen strong demand in South Korea, will help drive up sales in China, where smallish SUVs are booming.

While the China market might appear a good fit for Ssangyong’s budget-focused models, growth in the world’s biggest car market has slowed significantly and an effort to set up production there faces challenges.

Most global car makers already have a joint venture or production agreement with local companies, which could make it tough for Ssangyong to find the Chinese partner it needs to build cars there.

Also, given rampant excess auto production capacity, China’s industrial policymakers are no longer so generous in allowing foreign automakers to form a joint venture with a Chinese firm.

Because imported cars are subject to high duty, Ssangyong’s share of the Chinese car market is miniscule compared with market leaders such as Volkswagen AG and General Motors Co.

Overall, China car sales rose a relatively sluggish 3 percent to 24.6 million vehicles in 2015. Ssangyong sold some 2,460 cars in China in last year, down from 11,976 in 2014.

“Yes, right now China is down, but if we can get the right pricing then I think we should be able to benefit there,” Goenka said.

CHINA VS U.S.

Mahindra had said in 2014 it was studying the possibility of selling Ssangyong cars in the United States.

An executive at Ssangyong’s team working on its U.S. strategy said he was not aware of any plan to put the project on the back burner, pointing out it did not envisage entering that market until around 2020.

“I have never heard that before. Never. As far as we are concerned, we are going ahead with the project,” said the executive, who declined to be named because he was not authorized to speak to the media. “In fact we are supposed to discuss it in the upcoming Ssangyong board meeting in March, and we have been preparing for it since mid-January.”

Goenka said the company was working with consultants on assessing the U.S. market and a final proposal had yet to be made to Ssangyong’s board of directors.

Another source familiar with the matter told Reuters that “there could be a difference of opinions” between the management teams at Ssangyong and parent company Mahindra regarding the United States. “My understanding is that Mahindra wants Ssangyong to take a breather in the U.S. entry plan, while Ssangyong is making progress in the project,” the source said.

A Ssangyong spokesman in Seoul declined to comment.

In 2014, Ssangyong held talks with Geely Automobile Holdings about the possibility of contracting the Chinese firm to manufacture its cars in China, according to three individuals involved in the discussions.

The talks foundered on Geely’s condition that any Ssangyong cars it built would carry the Geely brand name and be marketed through its distribution channel, the sources said.

(Additional reporting by Hyunjoo Jin in SEOUL and Himank Sharma in MUMBAI; Editing by Alex Richardson)

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BEIJING (Reuters) – China’s carbon emissions, by far the world’s highest, may have peaked in 2014, according to a study published on Monday,  potentially putting Beijing under pressure to toughen its climate pledges.

China has promised to bring greenhouse gas emissions to a peak by “around 2030” as part of its commitments to a global pact to combat global warming, signed in Paris last year. Evidence that the country has peaked much earlier could lead to concerns that its existing targets are too easy.

The study, by the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment and the ESRC Centre for Climate Change Economics and Policy at the London School of Economics, said that the 2030 peak was a very conservative estimate.

“It is quite possible that emissions will fall modestly from now on, implying that 2014 was the peak,” said the report, noting that recent data already showed that China’s emissions fell in 2015.

“If emissions do grow above 2014 levels … that growth trajectory is likely to be relatively flat, and a peak would still be highly likely by 2025,” the authors said.

Xie Zhenhua, China’s senior climate change envoy, said at a press conference on Monday that the country’s emissions had not peaked in 2014 and were still growing.

While total energy consumption rose 0.9 percent to 4.3 billion tonnes of standard coal in 2015, coal consumption fell 2.2 percent on a year earlier, according to Reuters calculations based on official data.

Chinese carbon experts said any fall in emissions in 2015 would be mainly due to a slowdown in China’s economy, and it was unlikely that emissions had peaked so early.

“I would like to believe that the peak will be around 2030, and if stricter policies for carbon reduction and some reforms in the way local leaders are evaluated on GDP growth, the peak will come in 2025,” said Xi Fengming, a carbon researcher with the China Academy of Sciences.

“But I do not think China has reached peak emissions in 2014,” he said.

The government said on Saturday that it would cap total energy consumption at 5 billion tonnes of standard coal by 2020, amounting to an increase of 16.3 percent from 2015.

It also said that it would cut carbon intensity – or the amount of CO2 emissions per unit of economic growth – by 18 percent over the 2016-2020 period.

The 2030 peak pledge was made in a joint declaration with the United States in late 2014. China also agreed it would make its best efforts to peak earlier.

One of the main bones of contention during the Paris climate talks was a regular five-year “stocktaking” process that would compel countries to adjust their targets in light of new economic or technological circumstances, with China arguing that any such adjustments must be voluntary.

U.S. climate change envoy, Todd Stern, said in Beijing last week that China could come under pressure to draw up tougher targets if it became clear that the existing goals were too easy.

“It will be up to the Chinese government whether they increase their target but there will obviously be a lot of international opinion looking forward to additional measures – whether it is China or anyone else,” he told reporters.

(Reporting by David Stanway; Editing by Richard Pullin and Joseph Radford)

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BEIJING (Reuters) – China faces a tough battle to keep its economy growing by at least 6.5 percent over the next five years while creating more jobs and restructuring inefficient industries, Premier Li Keqiang said as he opened China’s annual parliament on Saturday.

Growth of 6.5 percent would mark a ripping pace for most countries but would be the slowest in China in a quarter century as world’s No. 2 economy grapples with gyrating financial markets, softening global trade and efforts to reduce environmental degradation.

“Our country’s development faces more and greater difficulties … so we must be prepared for a tough battle,” Li said.

In 2016, Beijing will aim for an economic growth rate between 6.5-7 percent, as Reuters previously reported, with a consumer inflation target of around 3 percent and money supply expansion of around 13 percent, according to a series of draft reports ahead of the opening of the 12-day parliament.

Many investors had been hoping China would post an aggressive target for fiscal spending to prop growth.

But the draft goal of running a fiscal deficit equivalent to 3 percent of GDP, while up from the previous year’s target of 2.3 percent, still disappointed some who had hoped for a number closer to 4.

“The budget deficit of 3 percent is not enough and should be increased,” economist and former central bank advisor Yu Yongding told Reuters on the sidelines of the meeting.

Zhou Hao, economist at Commerzbank in Singapore, said the low figure may reflect concerns that a higher number would signal tolerance for another spree of debt-fueled growth such as that Beijing embarked on in 2009.

Moody’s recently downgraded the outlook for Chinese sovereign debt, a move Chinese regulators said was unjustified.

“The pressure from rating agencies could be something China has to consider, indicating that China is cautious on rolling out large infrastructure investment that could result in long-term debt issues,” Zhou said in a email.

KILL THE ZOMBIES

The reports provide a blueprint of China’s aspirations for the next five years across a range of sectors and measures.

They show Beijing trying to strike a balance between holding up growth and restructuring under-performing industries, where so-called “zombie firms” are responsible for much of the country’s corporate debt overhang left over from the 2009 stimulus.

In lead up to parliament, the government flagged major job losses in key coal and steel industries. Overall, China aims to lay off 5-6 million state workers over the next two to three years, two sources said, in Beijing’s boldest retrenchment program in almost two decades.

Li said the country will create 10 million new jobs, address zombie firms through mergers, bankruptcies and debt deals, and hold the urban registered unemployment rate below 4.5 percent in 2016.

Seeking to improve the environment, Beijing aims to cap total energy consumption at 5 billion tonnes of standard coal by 2020 and set targets for improving water efficiency.

China will increase military spending by 7.6 percent this year, its lowest increase in six years, as it pursues a modernization plan that will shrink staffing.

Unlike previous years, the documents did not mention a specific target for trade figures, having missed their goals repeatedly in recent years.

Weighed down by sluggish demand at home and abroad, industrial overcapacity and faltering investment, China’s economic growth slowed to 6.9 percent in 2015.

Economists widely expect it to cool further to a still-healthy rate of around 6.5 percent this year.

But slower growth raises the specter of social unrest, as the transformation from low-end manufacturing to high technology and services leads to rising structural unemployment.

FIXING MARKETS

Beijing hopes the country’s financial markets can play a stronger role in supporting the economic transformation.

“We will move forward with the reform of stock and bond markets and increase the level of rule of law in their development, promote the sound development of the multilevel capital market, and ensure that the proportion of direct financing is increased,” Li said.

The reassurance comes after Chinese markets erupted in 2015, with the stock indexes crashing, the yuan sliding sharply, and property markets in major cities spiked while smaller cities lagged.

Those moves prompted heavy-handed intervention from the government, leading some to question whether the Chinese Communist Party was capable of following through on its commitment to let markets play a “decisive role” in setting the price of assets.

Li said China will open its capital account in an “orderly manner” and continue to improve the exchange rate regime in 2016.

(Additional reporting by Kevin Yao, Sue-Lin Wong, Zhang Xiaochong, Adam Rose, Kathy Chen, Niu Shuping, and Michael Martina; Writing by Pete Sweeney; Editing by Lincoln Feast)

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BEIJING (Reuters) – China aims to become a world leader in advanced industries such as semiconductors and in the next generation of chip materials, robotics, aviation equipment and satellites, the government said in its blueprint for development between 2016 and 2020.

In its new draft five-year development plan unveiled on Saturday, Beijing also said it aims to use the internet to bolster a slowing economy and make the country a cyber power.

Innovation is the primary driving force for China’s development, Premier Li Keqiang said in a speech at the start of the annual full session of parliament.

China is hoping to marry its tech sector’s nimbleness and ability to gather and process mountains of data to make other, traditional areas of the economy more advanced and efficient, with an eye to shoring up its slowing economy and helping transition to a growth model that is driven more by services and consumption than by exports and investment.

This policy, known as “Internet Plus”, also applies to government, health care and education.

As technology has come to permeate every layer of Chinese business and society, controlling technology and using technology to exert control have become key priorities for the government.

China will implement its “cyber power strategy”, the five-year plan said, underscoring the weight Beijing gives to controlling the Internet, both for domestic national security and the aim of becoming a powerful voice in international governance of the web.

China aims to increase Internet control capabilities, set up a network security review system, strengthen cyberspace control and promote a multilateral, democratic and transparent international Internet governance system, according to the plan.

Since President Xi Jinping came to power in early 2013, the government has increasingly reined in the Internet, seeing the web as a crucial domain for controlling public opinion and eliminating anti-Communist Party sentiment.

China will “strengthen the struggle against enemies in online sovereign space and increase control of online public sentiment,” said the plan.

It will also “perfect cybersecurity laws and legislation”.

Such laws and regulations have sparked fear amongst foreign businesses operating in China, and prompted major powers to express concern to Beijing over three new or planned laws, including one on counter-terrorism.

These laws codify sweeping powers for the government to combat perceived threats, from widespread censorship to heightened control over certain technologies.

(Reporting by Paul Carsten; Editing by Kim Coghill)

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