The Hindu Business Line : Provisional anti-dumping duty on silk fabrics from China

Of the estimated 70,000 powerloom units operating across the country, about 50 per cent of them had shut down their operations over the past few years because of the large scale dumping of Chinese silk fabrics.

Bangalore, May 24

The Union Government has imposed provisional anti-dumping duties pending final order on all imports of silk fabrics from China to protect the domestic silk powerloom industry.

"This is a provisional order passed on April 27, pending final order which will be imposed after a public hearing after 40 days. We are confident the final order will be in favour of the powerloom industry," said Mr H. Basker, CEO and member secretary of Central Silk Board.

The provisional anti-dumping duties are being imposed on imports of silk fabric weighing 20-100 grams per metre, originating in or exported from China, considering the dumping margin, which ranges from 57-115 per cent, he said.

The Directorate-General of Antidumping and Allied Duties (DGAD) has come out with a reference price of $2.09-$6.15 per metre, a "non-injurious price of the domestic industry and any fabric of the above range imported from China below the reference price will attract anti-dumping duty," Mr Basker said.

The dumping of silk fabrics by Chinese exporters had seriously impacted the operations of thousands of small silk powerloom units. Of the estimated 70,000 powerloom units operating across the country, about 50 per cent of them had shut down their operations over the past few years because of the large scale dumping of Chinese silk fabrics, he said.

Mr Basker was hopeful that the powerloom units that had shut down would be back in action gradually, with the levy of antidumping duties. The levy of anti-dumping duties by the DGAD is the fall out of over 1.5 years of investigations by the agency. The Central Silk Board in association with various silk power loom weavers associations from Karnataka, Gujarat and Uttar Pradesh had filed a case in September 2004 against the dumping of cheap Chinese silk fabrics.

Chinese exporters have been dumping silk fabrics at abysmal low rates of $1-1.25 per metre over past few years while it costs about $2.5-$4 to produce a metre of silk fabric in the India. Chinese silk fabric exports to India grew by a whopping 6560 per cent over the past five years from 14.48 lakh metres in 2000-01 to 9.649 crore lakh metres in 2004-05.

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