 "DGTR initiates sou-motu investigation into dumping of 4 Chinese goods")
The commerce ministry's investigation arm DGTR has "suo-motu" initiated probes against the alleged dumping of four products, including roller chains, glass mirrors and fasteners, by Chinese companies as the authority seeks to guard MSME units against cheap imports from the neighbouring country, an official said on Wednesday.
Usually, anti-dumping investigations are initiated based on an application filed by domestic producers, but since the fragmented industries did not have the know-how of the procedures involved in the trade remedy probe, the Directorate General of Trade Remedies (DGTR) has undertaken the exercise to investigate the matter on its own initiative.
Directorate General of Trade Remedies Anant Swarup said that these products are mainly manufactured by MSMEs.
He said that the import of these four products together stood at about Rs 800 crore and they are coming from China.
"We have initiated four suo-motu cases," Swarup told reporters here.
The DGTR said that it is probing the alleged dumping of telescopic channel drawer, unframed glass mirrors and fasteners.
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The move is aimed at granting much-needed protection to the MSME (micro, small and medium enterprises) producers against dumped goods from China.
The directorate had received information that Indian producers of these products were facing stiff competition from unfairly priced Chinese imports.
In 2022-23, India had imported close to USD 100 billion worth of merchandise from China. India's merchandise trade deficit with China stood at USD 83 billion in that fiscal.
To help fragmented industries avail benefits of trade remedies like antidumping and countervailing duties, earlier the DGTR had simplified procedural requirements to facilitate their participation in seeking protection against unfair trade practices of imports.
DGTR had issued trade notices allowing for a sampled analysis of the condition of these industries. This has made remedies against unfairly priced imports more accessible to domestic producers.
If it is established that the dumping of these products has caused material injury to domestic players, DGTR would recommend the imposition of anti-dumping duty on these imports.
The finance ministry takes the final decision to impose duties.
Anti-dumping probes are conducted by countries to determine whether domestic industries have been hurt because of a surge in cheap imports.
As a countermeasure, they impose these duties under the multilateral regime of the Geneva-based World Trade Organization (WTO). The duty is aimed at ensuring fair trading practices and creating a level-playing field for domestic producers vis-a-vis foreign producers and exporters.
India has already imposed anti-dumping duty on several products to tackle cheap imports from various countries, including China.