US President George W. Bush on Friday rejected a request to place quotas on steel pipe imported from China and said that the cost to American consumers would outweigh the benefit to domestic producers.

U.S. pipemakers and a labor group had asked the Bush administration to impose the quotas on certain kinds of steel pipe imported from China and used primarily in construction.

"Imposing import relief would cost US consumers substantially more than the increased income that could be realized by domestic producers," Bush said in a statement released at his Texas ranch where he is staying for holiday.

(Xinhua News Agency December 31, 2005)