The government has imposed anti-dumping duty on imports of a certain type of fibre board to protect the domestic industry from cheap shipments from countries like China and Thailand.
The duty ranged between $308.7 per cubic metre and $395.5 per cubic metre, the finance ministry said in a notification.
Plain medium density fibre board is widely used for partitions, furnitures and cabinets.
Acting on an application of domestic producers on alleged dumping of the board from China, Thailand, Malaysia and Sri Lanka, the Directorate General of Anti-dumping and Allied Duties (DGAD) had carried out an anti-dumping probe and recommended the duty.
The DGAD said the domestic industry had suffered material injury due to the dumped imports of plain medium density fibre board from these countries.
Unlike safeguard duty, which is levied in a uniform way, anti-dumping duty varies from product to product and country to country. Both duties are allowed under the multilateral trade rules after investigations to stand the WTO scrutiny.
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India has slapped anti-dumping duty on several items such as yarn, fabrics, some of the stainless steel products and chemicals imported from China and other nations.
A recent WTO report had said that India was second only to Argentina among the G-20 nations in initiating anti-dumping investigations during January-July 2009.
India had started 15 anti-dumping investigations in the first seven months of 2009, while Argentina accounted for 19.