WTO Members report on anti-dumping activity

The United States initiated 39 investigations during the first semester of 2001, as compared with 9 investigation initiated during the first semester of 2000. Canada initiated 23 investigations during the same period. For both Members, the first semester 2001 data suggest an unusually high level of activity.

India was next in terms of the number of investigations initiated, with 16, while the European Communities initiated 13 investigations. These figures represent a decline from the number of investigations initiated by these Members during the first semester of 2000.

China, with 22 investigations on its exports, is at the top of the list of countries subject to anti-dumping investigations, followed by Korea (10 investigations), Chinese Taipei (9 investigations) and India (8 investigations). Ten of the investigations against Chinese exports were initiated by the US and India (5 each).

The majority (65) of investigations initiated during the first semester of 2001 involved products classified in the base metals sector of the Harmonized System of Tariff Classification, which includes iron, steel and aluminium products. The other two sectors most affected were plastics and textiles, with, respectively, 17 and 10 investigations initiated. Both the European Communities and Canada initiated all but one investigation during the period on products in the base metals sector. For the United States, investigations on products in the base metals sector represented more than half the number of initiations during the period.

Sixteen WTO Members imposed a total of 85 final anti-dumping measures against exports from 35 countries or customs territories during the first semester of 2001. This total represents a decline from the 127 measures imposed during the corresponding period of 2000. India imposed the most final measures during the period, 18. This represents a significant decline from the 33 final measures imposed by India during the corresponding period of 2000. The United States and Brazil follow India in the number of final measures imposed during the period, with 12 measures each.

Exports from Korea were the subject of the largest number of final measures imposed, 10, during the first semester of 2001, closely followed by exports from China (9 measures). For both countries this was a decrease from the number of measures imposed against their exports during the first semester of 2000, when their exports were subject to 13 measures each.

As was the case for initiations, the sector most affected by final measures was base metals, with 31 final measures imposed on that products in that sector. This was followed by chemicals, with 27 measures imposed, and textiles with 8 measures. All 12 of the final measures imposed by the United States during the first semester were in the base metals sector, while the majority of the measures imposed by India were in the chemicals sector.

The anti-dumping semi-annual reports by Members for the relevant period can be found under document series G/ADP/N/78/.

  
Note to editors:

The WTO Anti-Dumping Agreement allows governments to act against dumped imports where there is material injury to the competing domestic industry. In order to do that the importing government has to determine, after investigating, that dumping is taking place, calculate the extent of dumping (how much lower the export price is compared to the exporter’s home market price or “normal value”), and determine that the dumping is causing injury.

GATT Article VI allows countries to take action against dumping. The Anti-Dumping Agreement clarifies and expands Article VI, adding detailed procedural and substantive requirements, and the two operate together. They allow countries to act in a way that would normally break the GATT principles of binding a tariff and not discriminating between trading partners — typically an affirmative finding in an anti-dumping case results in an additional import duty on the particular dumped product from the particular exporting country in order to bring its price closer to the “normal value” or to remove the injury to domestic industry in the importing country.