India imposes anti-dumping duty on two Chinese products

India, China, and Vietnam are members of the WTO.

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India has imposed anti-dumping duty on two Chinese goods — a refrigerant gas and certain kinds of steel products, during the month so far to guard domestic players from cheap imports from the neighbouring country.

These duties were imposed as these products — cold-rolled non-oriented electrical steel, and 1,1,1,2-Tetrafluoroethane or R-134a — were exported to India from China at below normal prices.

On steel goods, India has imposed $223.82 per tonne on certain Chinese firms, while on few others $415 per tonne was imposed for five years, according to a finance ministry notification. On the gas, up to $5,251 per tonne was slapped for five years.

As per a separate notification, India said it has imposed anti-dumping duty on imports of ‘Calcium Carbonate Filler Masterbatch’ exported from Vietnam. It is widely used in plastic industry.

These duties are imposed after the commerce ministry’s investigation arm Directorate General of Trade Remedies (DGTR) has conducted probes separately for each of these items and recommended the duty.

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 Organisation (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, China, and Vietnam are members of the WTO.

India has already imposed anti-dumping duties on several products to tackle cheap imports from various countries, including China.

Imposition of high tariffs by the US on several countries have led to dumping of goods in countries like India.