Negotiations aimed at improving opportunities for international trade cannot succeed unless nations also tackle the abuse of rules on goods that are dumped in foreign markets, a group of 15 nations said on Wednesday.
”For certain industries, for certain sectors, the impact is so big that it might destroy any attempt to develop,” said Alejandro Jara, Chile’s ambassador to the World Trade Organisation.
”We have been told that we should open our industry and diversify and we have done it, but every time you become successful in a particular sector, it is likely that you will be slapped with anti-dumping duties.”
Where a country determines that foreign goods are being dumped — supplied at below market prices because they are subsidised or in an attempt to corner the market — the WTO allows it to impose extra duties on imports.
The biggest users of anti-dumping measures are India, the United States and the European Union, with many of the duties imposed on imports of steel or textiles.
But the countries at Wednesday’s meeting in Geneva say the measures are often unjust and are aimed at protecting domestic industry from legitimate foreign competition.
Even where there is found to be no dumping, the long and complicated investigation can put a heavy burden on exporters, they add.
The group wants to amend WTO rules to prevent the abuse of anti-dumping measures so they are only used ”to the extent necessary to respond to injurious dumping” and prevent burdensome or frivolous investigations.
They also want to improve the fairness of investigations so businesses can be more certain of the outcome. Clodoaldo Hugueney, Brazil’s undersecretary-general for foreign trade, said his country had been so badly hit by anti-dumping duties on steel that reductions in general import tariffs planned as part of the negotiations will be of little help.
”Steel has been subject to anti-dumping harassment for 20 years so it doesn’t mean anything to negotiate tariffs in the steel sector,” he said.
Tadakatsu Sano, Japanese vice-minister for international affairs in the Economy Ministry, added that internationally tariffs on non-agricultural goods average around five percent, but anti-dumping duties average 45%.
The United States and its allies were reluctant to discuss anti-dumping as part of the trade round which is due to be completed by the end of next year, but were forced to accept the issue.
However, Deputy US Trade Representative Peter Allgeier on Tuesday told reporters that US priorities were the reductions of tariffs on goods and services, and made no mention of anti-dumping rules.
”I sincerely hope that the United States will be more involved in this issue and make constructive proposals to create a better mechanism of anti-dumping measures together with us,” Sano said.
Also on Tuesday, 66 US senators wrote to President George Bush urging him to maintain a law that redistributes anti-dumping fines to US companies despite a WTO ruling that it is illegal. They claimed that repealing the law would cost jobs. The European Union and 20 other countries had filed complaints with the WTO, saying the law punishes exporters to the United States twice because first they are fined and then those fines are handed to their competitors.
The countries that attended Wednesday’s meeting were: Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Hong Kong, Israel, Japan, South Korea, Mexico, Norway, Singapore, Switzerland, Taiwan, Thailand and Turkey. – Sapa-AP