The Hindu : Anti-dumping: Dhaka takes Delhi to WTO

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Sunday, Feb 08, 2004

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International - India & World

Anti-dumping: Dhaka takes Delhi to WTO

By Haroon Habib

DHAKA, FEB. 7. The World Trade Organisation (WTO) has called the Indian mission in Geneva for a consultation following a case filed by Dhaka against New Delhi's anti-dumping duties imposed on Bangladesh batteries.

According to sources, if the discussion turns out to be successful, India may have to lift the duties imposed in March 2001 within a month.

Rahimafrooz, a leading Bangladesh battery manufacturer, was asked to pay duties on batteries exported between January 1 and September 30, 2000. There were 64,203 units of batteries worth $789,745 sold during the period.

Iftikhar Hossain Chowdhury of Rahimarooz and joint secretary of the Bangladesh Battery Manufacturers Association, told presspersons that "despite the Government's green signal, the mission in Geneva has been delaying the process for more than a year."

According to an initial enquiry, the Bangladesh share of the Indian market was negligible in volume of sales. "Instead of terminating the investigation, the Indian authorities pursued the case further and switched to quoting prices instead of volume."

According to the WTO pact on anti-dumping, if the export price of a commodity is less than two per cent or the volume of import from a country is less than three per cent of the whole domestic market, there cannot be sufficient injury to local manufacturers and the case does not merit an anti-dumping imposition.

A source in the country's Tariff Commission, which deals with dumping and countervailing measures, said: "Since this is the first case that Bangladesh is pursuing, we took a long time to ensure that our preparations were exhaustive." He, however, was confident that the consultation would go in their favour.

According to the Dispute Settlement Understanding of the WTO, parties will have to sit for consultation within a month. It was learnt that Mohammed Ali Taslim, chairman of the Tariff Commission, will be the chief negotiator for Bangladesh.

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Anti-dumping: Dhaka takes Delhi to WTO