UPDATE 3-US sets duties on China steel goods as cases mount

* Many companies hit with 438 percent countervailing duty

* U.S. will decide later this month on anti-dumping duties

* More U.S. cases in pipeline against Chinese goods (Adds detail on September filings, paper case)

By Doug Palmer

WASHINGTON, Nov 3 (Reuters) - The United States said on Tuesday it set preliminary duties ranging from 2 percent to 438 percent on hundreds of millions of dollars of imported steel wire decking from China to offset government subsidies.

It was the latest in a growing list of actions against imports from China, the United States' second-largest trading partner. Industry filed five new complaints against China in September, believed to be a record for a single month.

Since January, the Commerce Department has launched at least one dozen investigations into charges Chinese companies receive government subsidies that allow them to sell more cheaply than U.S. competitors or "dump" goods in the United States at unfairly low prices regardless of profit or loss.

The preliminary decision on Tuesday concerns welded-wire rack decking, a product used in industrial and other commercial storage rack systems.

U.S. companies imported an estimated $317 million of such decking in 2008, an increase of 49 percent from 2006.

The Commerce Department said it set countervailing duty rates of 2.02 percent for Dalian Huameilong Metal Products Co and 3.13 percent for Dalian Eastfound Metal Products. Both cooperated in its investigation.

But a significant number of Chinese companies did not complete the U.S. government's questionnaire and those companies were given an adverse countervailing duty rate of 437.73 percent "for non-responsiveness," the department said.

U.S. COMPANIES SEEKING DUTIES

Other Chinese companies not formally targeted in the case were given a preliminary countervailing duty of 2.58 percent.

In a related investigation, U.S. wire decking producers AWP Industries Inc., ITC Manufacturing Inc., J&L Wire Cloth Inc., Nashville Wire Products Inc. and Wireway Husky Corp. have also asked the Commerce Department to impose anti-dumping duties of 143 percent to 316 percent on the Chinese product.

The Commerce Department will issue its preliminary decision on the dumping charges in mid-November and then make a final decision on duty levels in later months.

The U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC) must determine whether U.S. producers have been harmed, or are threatened with harm, by the imports for duties to become final.