Doha pact: India dares US on anti-dumping

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New Delhi, Dec 20: While conceding that the earliest conclusion of the six-year-old Doha Round negotiations at the WTO would only be in 2009-10, India on Thursday, however, threatened that it would not support any agreement in the multilateral talks which allows “zeroing”, a US-backed rule which allows imposition of higher anti-dumping duties.

India is backed by at least 15 other countries that all have said zeroing would help US enhance its protectionist tendencies. Anti-dumping duty is imposed by an importing country when it is found that the normal price of a product in the exporting country is higher that its export price. The duty imposed depends on damage suffered by the domestic industry due to the imported product.

“With ‘zeroing’ there will be no Doha Round agreement. The text by the chair of the negotiating group on rules (Ambassador Guillermo Valles Galmes of Uruguay) has succumbed to pressure by the US and has brought in zeroing which benefits only the US. This is disturbing and is a retrograde step. The chair has lost its credibility. Zeroing was ruled as illegal by WTO’s dispute settlement body and the appellate body,” commerce secretary G K Pillai said at a conference organized by the Centre for Trade and Development (Centad) here on Thursday. Pillai said the chair deleted the “lesser duty rule” proposed by India and several other countries, which called for imposition of lesser anti-dumping duties. He said organisations like Centad and NGOs must help build public opinion against allowing zeroing.

India also opposed a move by the developed countries to disallow subsidies to traditional fishing communities that uses boats with small motors, in the pretext of over-fishing and damaging the environment. The proposal by the developed countries said subsidies could be given to such fisherman if the country gets approval from Food and Agriculture Organisation.

“Such fishing communities will be protected by India with subsidies. This is non-negotiable. We are also against approaching FAO for any such approval,” Pillai said.

On a recent proposal by the US and EU that to counter climate change, tariffs must be done away with on 43 environment-friendly goods, Pillai said India would welcome such goods coming into the country but would also want the technology to be transferred freely. Pillai said India was against payment of royalty for the patents on these advanced technology environment-friendly goods.