The Commerce Ministry has not recommended any antidumping duty on imports of a chemical, used in the pharma industry, from China, Germany and Saudi Arabia after its investigative arm found no impact of its increased imports on the local industry. The Directorate General of Trade Remedies (DGTR) in its final findings concluded that the domestic industry is “not suffering” injury on account of the imports of ‘Di Methyl Formamide’ from these countries, according to a notification. “The authority is of the view that imposition of antidumping duty is not warranted in the present investigation,” the DGTR said.

The directorate considers it appropriate to “not recommend” the duty, it added. Balaji Amines Ltd had filed an application for imposition of anti-dumping duty on the imports from the three countries. The chemical is used as a solvent in pharmaceuticals manufacturing, polymers making and pesticides formulations. The DGTR also stated that the large volume of imports are in response to the increased demand in the country and are not directly impacting the domestic industry.

“There is overall improvement in the health of the domestic industry. The production from base year (2014-15) to subsequent years have multiplied manifold and during period of investigation has reached 10 times of the production of the base year. The sales of domestic industry have also shown multifold increase,” it added.

Countries carry out anti-dumping probe to determine whether their domestic industries have been hurt because of a surge in below-cost imports. As a counter measure, they impose duties under the multilateral regime of WTO.

The duty is also aimed at ensuring fair trading practises and creating a level-playing field for domestic producers with regard to foreign producers and exporters.

Source : Financial Expresss