Dumping policy irks Brazil, China

China and Brazil, India's key allies on multilateral trade issues, have upped the ante against New Delhi's anti-dumping policy and have proposed a review mechanism.

China has also threatened to impose anti-dumping duty on Indian steel. Commerce and Industry Minister Arun Jaitley, who returned from Beijing this weekend, however, said the issue would be resolved through consultations between the two trading partners.

"It is a mutual trade issue that will be resolved once we exchange information and disuss. China needs steel for its construction industry and we can offer good quality steel at reasonalble prices," Jaitley told reporters.

Meanwhile, a Chinese delegation would hold consultations with the commerce ministry officials on Wednesday to review the policy adopted by India. Chinese products have faced the maximum number of anti-dumping duties imposed by India. The issue was also raised by the Chinese government during interaction with Jaitley.

Brazilian External Relations Minister Celso Amorim also proposed similar mechanism but said the process should be adopted for product-specific duties.

"It is a bad fact of good trade. We should create some early warning system to negotiate and discuss before levying duty. We should avoid (anti dumping) duty because it creates some kind of tension," Amorim said in his address at Ficci.

In the past, the European Union and South Korea had also proposed policy reviews and India was open to the suggestion.

India is the largest user of anti-dumping duties, having intiated over 160 investigations with over 60 cases involving China. While the commerce ministry officials were not averse to policy reviews with trading partners, they were opposed to product-specific discussions.