China, Russia may move out of non-mkt economies list

NEW DELHI: The government may drop countries like Russia and China from the list of ‘non-market economies’ notified for the purpose of assessing value of goods for levy of customs duty and imposition of anti-dumping duty.
While China has already become a member of the World Trade Organisation (WTO), Russia has also initiated a detailed exercise to join the apex trade regulatory body. Both Russia and China have been urging Indian authorities to stop considering them as non-market economies, highly-placed sources in the government said.
While declining to comment on the issue, director general of anti-dumping & allied duties (DGAD) L V Saptharishi said experts participating at a recent seminar on anti-dumping have called for re-examination of the non-market economy criterion for determination of normal value of goods originating from countries notified by the government.
Apart from China and Russia, a dozen other countries including CIS nations, Belarus, Nepal, Ukraine, Vietnam, Mongolia and some east European countries also figure in the list of non-market economies. Going by declared costs, the government is free to assess value of goods through the ‘constructed costs’ route in the case of non-market economies.
“It is a complex issue which needs closer understanding. We will look into it,� Mr Saptharishi said while commenting on the recommendations of the experts. We have received other inputs too and the issue will receive our attention, he added. The DGAD said the commerce department would also consider a suggestion of experts to make disclosure statement of the authority more detailed in order to avoid inconsistencies. The demand for experts for transaction-wise import data was also crucial, he added.
Mr Saptharishi said the commerce department would press for special & differential treatment to exporters from India, and other developing countries, in the anti-dumping cases filed against them. Article 15 of WTO’s anti-dumping agreement has to be operationalised for this purpose. The de-minimus thresholds should be raised to make pre-initiation consultations mandatory.
The DGAD said flexibility is being adopted within WTO rules to ensure fairplay in all anti-dumping investigations. The directorate also plans to interact with the National Judicial Academy at Bhopal to sensitise law officers of the government about anti-dumping and anti-subsidy issues.
Nearly 300 delegates participated in the recent anti-dumping seminar, organised in collaboration with Ficci, with prominent representation from steel, textiles, chemicals and pharmaceuticals sectors. The directorate plans to organise similar meetings at a dozen other places in the country during the current financial year. The directorate is currently conducting preliminary investigation in the case of half-a-dozen items including butter oil, metcoke and plastic ophthalmic lenses.