JUTE goods exporters to India faces big setback as an Indian anti-dumping court recently rejected appeal by five Bangladeshi exporters against anti-dumping duty imposed on January 5 this year. The anti-dumping duty ranges between $19 and $352 per tonne to suggest that local exporters have to incur major loss if they want to continue business with Indian buyers who import jute yarns to run factories. The other option is to stop exporting to India; which accounted for 17 percent or 1.41 lakh tonnes of our export of 8.25 lakh tonnes of jute goods in 2015-16 and 37 percent of our overall export of $ $689 million in that year.
Indian government has acted on the complaints of its domestic producers that Bangladeshi exporters are under-pricing the jute goods forcing them to sell their product at lower cost and incur losses. Our exporters are also enjoying 10 percent cash incentive; they argued to keep the jute goods competitive in Indian market. The court has therefore rejected the appeal finally dismissing our exporters plea that the anti-dumping duty is not justified according to a news item in a local daily on Wednesday.
Media reports said quoting the Indian revenue authorities that the Directorate General of Anti-Dumping and Allied Duties (DGAD) of India has found based on investigation that Bangladeshi exporters were selling jute goods to Indian market at a lower price than their domestic market price. It violates the rule of fair competition. The court has upheld the decision of the Indian anti-dumping authorities. Bangladeshi jute goods exporters will have to pay the duty now if they want to continue export to Indian market.
We must say Bangladesh is now the biggest Indian market of all goods and services and using total monopoly in many cases forcing out local producers. In contrast to such aggressive export of Indian products here, Bangladesh has just few product to sell to India, which is visible from the poor balance of payment account. Bangladesh is exporting goods just over $600 million now annually as against $6.0 billion India’s formal trade. The overall trade balance is much higher taking into account Indian informal exports and remittance of Indian workers from Bangladesh.
We must say India must be accommodative to Bangladesh in trade issues but it is creating obstacle to Bangladesh’s major exports including readymade garments with anti-dumping duty. It is unfortunate that the Indian government has even sidetracked our Prime Minister’s plea with Indian Prime Minister to rescind anti-dumping duty on jute goods during her visit to Delhi in April this year. In our view more export from Bangladesh to India will enable Bangladesh to buy back more from India to create more trade to the benefit of both countries. India should therefore refrain from using anti-dumping duty without strong ground.
