In sync with several other major economies, India initiated less number of anti-dumping probes against imports between October, 2010 and April 2011, according to a joint report of the multilateral agencies. India launched 15 anti-dumping investigations during this period as against 20 in the same months (October 2009 to April 2010) of earlier period, the report of the World Trade Organisation, OECD and UNCTAD said.
The other major developed and developing economies also showed a similar pattern for these investigations. The trend is contrary to the apprehension that the difficult global economic environment would force nations to protect more aggressively their markets against imports.
According to official data, India’s anti-dumping investigations mostly related to the chemical sector. The G-20 members in all initiated 78 anti-dumping investigations compared to 83 cases during the period under review.
Countries like Australia, Canada and China witnessed a drop in such cases, the report said. Unlike safeguard duties, which are levied in a uniform way, anti-dumping duties vary from product to product and from country to country.
Countries initiate anti-dumping probes to check if domestic industry has been hurt because of a surge in cheap imports. As a counter-measure, they impose duties under the multilateral WTO regime.
The G20 member countries also reported a decline in thenumber of countervailing duty investigations initiated. The total number of initiations of countervailing duty investigations by these nations dropped to seven from 11 during the period under review.
Countervailing duty (CVD), also known as anti-subsidy duty, is an import duty imposed to neutralise the negative effects of export subsidies. India initiated one safeguard investigations during
period.
