DGTR to reconsider anti-dumping rules amid rising Chinese steel imports

Amid mounting complaints from the domestic steel industry after Chinese steel product imports surged 8 per cent in the 12 months to March 2018, despite nearly 80 per cent of these products being covered under anti-dumping duty, the Department of Commerce is attempting a course correction. The Directorate General of Trade Remedies (DGTR) in the Department — entrusted with using trade remedial methods under relevant framework of WTO arrangements — is scrambling to commission a study for an impact assessment of India’s anti-dumping measures and is learnt to have approached the Delhi-based Indian Institute of Foreign Trade for this study. Consultations with stakeholders, including with the Ministry of Steel, are likely to get underway. This move, coming just ahead of the upcoming general elections, is an admission of sorts by the Department that the punitive measures taken so far are floundering.