The Japanese government requested Thursday that the World Trade Organization set up a panel to settle its dispute with South Korea over the country's antidumping duties on steel bars.

The filing came as Tokyo and Seoul failed to resolve the issue through a bilateral consultation in August and will start a dispute settlement process by the international trade body, the Japanese government said.

South Korea started levying antidumping duties on Japanese stainless steel bars in 2004 and the measure has been extended three times so far.

It imposes a 15.39 percent tariff on Japanese stainless steel bars with the tariff totaling about 4.9 billion yen ($44 million) by June last year, according to the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry. Japan has seen around a 40 percent drop in stainless steel bar exports to South Korea from levels before the tariff.

Stainless steel bars are used to make bolts, nuts as well as valves for machinery and cars.

Japan has argued that maintaining such antidumping duties for roughly 14 years is against WTO rules. The government said Thursday it hopes the issue will be settled "appropriately" by the WTO.

When a country judges that a product is imported at an unfairly lower price than sold in its home market, it can impose an antidumping tariff. Such a measure should expire after five years but can be extended as an exception if lifting it is feared to hurt the domestic industry.

In June, Japan notified South Korea that it wanted to hold bilateral consultations over the antidumping duties.