India To Dispute Eu Anti-Dumping Steps
India has decided to appeal to the World Trade Organisation against the repeated use of anti-dumping measures on unbleached Indian cotton fabrics by the European Union.
The case will be registered as a formal dispute before the World Trade Organisations dispute settlement body.
A senior government official told Business Standard that India had decided to formally challenge the European Unions repeated anti-dumping measures as it amounted to unfair trade practices. The cotton fabrics industry has been seeking government action on the issue for some time now.
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The European Unions anti-dumping measures on these products have spawned substantial dissatisfaction in industrial circles and also resulted in considerable loss of business for Indian exporters.
However, the commerce ministry, in consultation with the textiles ministry, is still debating whether to take the issue of the European Unions anti-dumping action on Indian bed linen to the dispute settlement body.
In both cases, the European Union insisted on taking action against Indian exports despite dropping the cases a few months ago due to lack of evidence. India has already expressed dissatisfaction on this count at several bilateral meetings.
Sources said the frequent anti-dumping action in the case of unbleached cotton fabrics had been largely driven by politics and the insistence of certain European Union member- countries.
The sources, however, added that India had a strong case.
India had earlier protested against the imposition of anti-dumping duty on unbleached cotton fabrics at a bilateral level in Brussels.
The imposition of this duty, ranging between 15 and 30 per cent, is expected to adversely affect Indias unbleached cotton fabric exports to the European Union, which reached Rs 760 crore in 1995.
A ministry note had earlier stated: Eurocotton, which represents major manufacturers of textiles in the European Union, has been at the forefront of a campaign to protect the European Union textile industry by lobbying for restricting extra-EU imports of textiles.
Sources pointed out that the European Commission had allowed Eurocotton to file a fresh complaint after it had withdrawn an earlier complaint. They said this violated the spirit of the agreement on anti-dumping, which envisages immediate termination of proceedings if the evidence is not sufficient to maintain an investigation.
The proper course of action for the European Community in this case would have been to reject the original complaint promptly.
Eurocotton would then have had to wait for an entire year before filing a fresh complaint, said the sources.
Indias exports in this category have risen from Rs 478 crore in 1993 to Rs 635 crore in 1994 and Rs 760 crore in 1995. In terms of quantity, Indias exports rose from 48,754 tonnes in 1993 to 50,511 tonnes in 1994.
The figure fell to 47,990 tonnes in 1995. In terms of overall imports by the European Union, India had a share of 15.34 per cent in 1993 and 14.57 per cent in 1994.