Boon Or Bane?

India holds the distinction of initiating the largest number of anti-dumping cases amongst all WTO members. Under WTO regulations, anti-dumping measures are usually taken to protect the domestic industry. However, critics argue that India has been mostly interpreting and applying the law to protect vested interests and negate competition. And that by initiating an ever-increasing number of anti-dumping cases, the country is hurting its downstream industries and in turn competitiveness. Is it time to review and fine-tune India’s approach towards anti-dumping measures?

If you've been closely following trends in foreign trade in recent years, you would have noticed that anti-dumping initiations (and im-positions) across many countries have been on the rise. Dig into some numbers and research and you'll realise that India has been leading the way in this regard! Nothing surprising, you'd reckon. For this is a clear sign of how countries are trying to protect their domestic industry. And India is supposed to be no different.

What surprised us though was when one of our readers (who happens to be an importer of jute bags) told a senior researcher at TDB Intelligence Unit (during an educational workshop conducted by TDB at Chennai), that he desires and has decided to continue importing jute bags from Bangladesh even after the imposition of anti-dumping duty by India on imports of jute and its products from Bangladesh and Nepal. We were intrigued by his seemingly carefully thought out intent. It got us curious about anti-dumping measures initiated and enacted by India so far. Were these measures actually protecting the domestic industries or adversely affecting the competitiveness of our finished products? And were India’s anti-dumping laws, knowingly or unknowingly, favouring the big manufacturers at the cost of the smaller ones, those you'd popularly term MSMEs? We needed answers, and thought our readers would do well with a good dose on anti-dumping initiations.

THE ORIGIN