26th July
Directorate General of Trade Remedies in India has sought comments from all stakeholders regarding certain changes proposed in the Customs Tariff (Identification and Assessment of Safeguard Duty) Rules, 1997, Customs Tariff (Identification, Assessment and Collection of Countervailing Duty on Subsidized Articles and for Determination of Injury) Rules, 1995 and the Customs Tariff (Identification, Assessment and Collection of Anti-dumping Duty on Dumped Articles and for Determination of Injury) Rules, 1995.
Some of the changes proposed are,
- Rules pertaining to Safeguard duty are proposed to be renamed as Customs Tariff (Identification and Assessment of Safeguard Measure) Rules, 1997, with a new definition of ‘Safeguard measure’ to mean a safeguard duty or a duty in the nature of Tariff Rate Quota (TRQ) imposed under sub-section (1) of section 8B of the Customs Tariff Act.
- Reference to ‘irreparable damage to the domestic industry’ in the meaning of ‘Critical circumstances’ is also proposed to be amended to ‘damage to the domestic industry which would be difficult to repair’.
- Meaning of domestic industry in the Countervailing duty Rules is proposed to be amended to bring the subsidy law at par with the dumping law and align the definition with the WTO Agreement.
- Explanation is proposed to be inserted in the definition of domestic industry to provide for provision when producers shall be deemed to be related to exporters or importers. Similar provision has also been proposed to be inserted in the Anti-dumping duty Rules.
- ‘Like article’ and ‘Period of Investigation’ are proposed to be defined in the Countervailing duty Rules.
- Rules for Circumvention of Countervailing duty have also been proposed to be inserted.
- Definition of ‘Period of Investigation’ is proposed to be inserted in the Anti-dumping Rules which says that the Period of Investigation proposed in the application should normally be as latest as possible and in any case not more than six months old as on date of initiation.