WTO: India moots anti-dumping rules

By agencies   |   Tuesday, 19 April 2005, 19:30 IST   |    1 Comments
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NEW DELHI: India has mooted a proposal at WTO providing for making application of lesser duty rule mandatory for all anti-dumping purposes. The paper on anti-dumping rules submitted to WTO's Negotiating Group on rules said, “amend Article 9.1 of anti-dumping agreement to provide for mandatory application of lesser duty rule by requiring that the anti-dumping duty shall not exceed the margin of dumping or injury margin whichever is lower". Lesser duty implies that the authority may impose anti-dumping duty less than the margin if such lesser duty would be adequate to remove the injury to domestic industry. Article 9.1 of the Anti-dumping agreement leaves to the discretion of the authorities of the importing member country whether or not to impose anti-dumping duty in cases where all requirements for imposition have been fulfilled and whether the amount of anti-dumping duty to be imposed shall be the full dumping margin or less. Based on the premise that the non-application of lesser duty rule tends to protect the injured domestic industry of the importing member more than what is adequate, a large number of economists and trade analysts are of the opinion that it should be made mandatory, the paper said. The Paper pointed out that accepting such a rule would imply that members agree on disciplines for determination of the injury margin. It proposes a separate provision in order to ensure fair comparison between the price of domestically produced like products or the designated target price, as the case may be on the price of dumped imports. Aimed at promoting discussions on discipline on determination of injury margin, the paper suggests two broad options for determining injury margin. Under the first option, injury margin shall be the difference between price of the like products produced by domestic industry and price of dumped imports. As per the second option, injury margin will be the difference between the target price for the domestic industry and the price of the dumped imports for each exporter or producer under investigation.