G20 Members Lowers Anti-Dumping Duty Initiations in Oct Apr.

Global economic crisis did not result in a spurt in anti-dumping duty investigations as was widely anticipated, says a report on G20 trade and investment.

The report said that when the financial crisis began in 2008, it was widely anticipated that there would be an increase in protectionist pressures around the world.

"...In fact, however, no such increased use of these remedies materialised. To the contrary, initiations of new trade remedy investigations dropped significantly between 2008 and 2010," it said.

Citing examples it said that during October 2010-April 2011, G20 members, including India, initiated 78 anti-dumping investigations, compared with 83 during the same period previous year.

"Australia''s (anti-dumping investigations)initiations dropped from 7 to 2, India''s from 20 to 15, Canada''s from 2 to 0 and China''s from 6 to 4," the report prepared by OECD, WTO and UNCTAD said.

Unlike safeguard duties, which are levied in a uniform way, anti-dumping duties vary from product to product and from country to country.

Countries initiate anti-dumping probes to check if domestic industry has been hurt because of a surge in cheap imports. As a counter-measure, they impose duties under the multilateral WTO regime.

It further said that the G20 members also reported a decrease in the number of countervailing duty investigations initiated in the first nine months of 2010 compared with the corresponding period in 2009.

The total number of initiations of countervailing duty investigations by G20 members dropped from 11 during October 2009-April 2010 to 7 during the period October 2010-April 2011.

Countervailing duty (CVD), also known as anti-subsidy duty, is an import duty imposed to neutralise the negative effects of subsidies.

Similarly, the number of safeguard investigations by G20 members has remained stable.

"G20 members initiated five new investigations in the October 2010 April 2011 period," the report said.

Source : in.news.yahoo.com