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India's anti-dumping mechanism comes under fire

Anti-dumping experts said the existing anti-dumping mechanism in the country lacks adequate support with its findings often favouring big industrialists.

Small exporters with no lobbying power end up losing heavily whenever their products are subjected to anti-dumping duties abroad.

At a discussion on ''Anti-dumping and Non-tariff Barriers'' in New Delhi, organised by the Rajiv Gandhi Institute for Contemporary Studies, leading lawyers debated the implications of anti-dumping provisions which relate to imports into India as also exports to other countries.

The seminar highlighted that the Indian domestic industry is suffering because of dumping by foreign countries. The Indian government was not adequate and responsive enough to take quick decisions, they said.

The other issues which were discussed included Trade-Related Investment Matters or TRIMS, subsidies and quantitative restrictions.

So far anti-dumping duties have been imposed on 21 products -- final duty on 16 products and provisional duty on the other five.

The experts said there is considerable delay in initiating anti-dumping investigations in India. This is because the anti-dumping cell is currently manned by only seven people unlike the United States, European Commission and Australia where they have more than 100 people each to man the anti-dumping cell.

In the US, EU and Australia, only 20-25 days are taken to start anti-dumping investigations, they pointed out. In India, it takes more than a year, causing untold suffering to the small exporters.

In order to impose anti-dumping duties in any nation, three conditions generally have to be fulfilled -- price condition, volume condition and material injury condition.

The European Union has imposed a fourth clause called the community interest clause where opinion of the majority of the countries should be taken for imposing anti-dumping duties. The speakers criticised the fourth clause which is not in vogue in other major regional trading blocs.

Speakers said the reason for increase in the application of anti-dumping duties could be attributed to the World Trade Organisation itself. The WTO does nothing to mitigate the problem arising out of price comparison. For example, a product can be considered have been to dumped if its export price increases or decreases because of appreciation or depreciation of local currency.

Similarly, the WTO monitoring the termination period of anti-dumping duties is not that meaningful as it does nothing to time limit for cases under review. As a result, imposition of anti-dumping duties can continue for a period of more than five years.

Likewise, the international committee on anti-dumping, formed with the objective of overseeing activities of member-nations, possesses very little power as it cannot overturn dumping findings of domestic investigation authorities. It is due to these reasons that anti-dumping duties are being imposed at a faster rate.

UNI