Commerce ministry has recommended for extension of anti-dumping duty

Commerce ministry has recommended for extension of anti-dumping duty

Subject : Economics

Context : The commerce ministry has recommended for extension of anti-dumping duty for five years on carbon black used in the rubber and tyre industry from China and Russia, with a view to guard domestic players from cheap imports from these two countries.

Concept :

• In a notification, the ministry’s investigation arm Directorate General of Trade Remedies (DGTR) has said there is a “positive” evidence of likelihood of dumping of ‘carbon black used in rubber applications’ and injury to the domestic industry if the existing anti-dumping duty would be removed.

Carbon Black

• Carbon black (subtypes are acetylene black, channel black, furnace black, lamp black and thermal black) is a material produced by the incomplete combustion of heavy petroleum products such as FCC tar, coal tar, or ethylene cracking tar.
• Carbon black is a form of para crystalline carbon that has a high surface-area-to-volume ratio, albeit lower than that of activated carbon.
• It is dissimilar to soot in its much higher surface-area-to-volume ratio and significantly lower (negligible and non-bioavailable) polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon (PAH) content.

Anti-Dumping Duty

• Anti-Dumping Duty is a trade levy imposed by any government on imported products which have prices less than their fair normal values in their domestic market.
• Thus, it is protectionist tariff that seeks to stop dumping process where company exports a product at a price lower than price it normally charged in domestic market of importing countries’.
• Anti-Dumping Duty is imposed under the multilateral World Trade Organisation (WTO) regime and varies from product to product and from country to country.
• In India, anti-dumping duty is recommended by the Union Ministry of Commerce (i.e. by DGAD), while the Union Finance Ministry imposes