Anti-dumping and Countervailing Duties Laws
The Finance Act of 1995 introduced regulations and procedures for examining dumping and subsidy complaints, by amending Section 18 of the Customs Act, 1969. The legislation was passed to bring the provisions on anti-dumping and countervailing actions into conformity with the WTO Agreements on Implementation of Article VI of the GATT 1994 and on Subsidies and Countervailing Measures. The Bangladesh Tariff Commission (BTC) conducts dumping and subsidies investigations.
An application for an investigation, whether for an anti-dumping or countervailing measure, must be made in writing to the BTC by or on behalf of a domestic industry. The BTC must terminate the investigation within one year of issuing public notice, and submit its findings and recommendations to the Government. Provisional anti-dumping or countervailing duties, no greater than the margin of dumping or of the subsidy rates, may be imposed within 60 days of initiation and applied for a period of six months, extendable by three months.
The final findings must be available within one year of the date of initiation. Imposition of the final duty is made by notification in the Official Gazette. Final measures may be taken for a period of five years from the date of imposition; however, the Government may renew the duty for a further five years, upon review, if it is believed that there would be continued injury. If the initial five-year period expires while a review is in progress, the anti-dumping duty can be extended for a maximum of one year.
Appeals against an anti-dumping or countervailing duty can be made to the Customs, Excise and Appellate Tribunal, under Section 196 of the Customs Act, 1969, and must be filed within 90 days of the imposition of the duty.
No investigations have been initiated on anti-dumping or countervailing measures during the review period. The previous TPR report noted that lack of technical expertise and financial resources both by the administration and industries, as well as lack of authenticated data essential for submission of an application, made it difficult to initiate investigations. The authorities note that this is still the case.
The budget for the fiscal year 2015-2016 provided some protection to the domestic industries of Bangladesh. Although most of the local manufacturers and producers are not happy enough as they find that the protection measures mostly through tariffs are limited or inadequate.
It is undoubtedly difficult for the government to continue with such direct protection of the domestic industries for long during a time when the country has significantly liberalised its trade regime and is committed to do more in near future. An analysis prepared by the Policy research Institute reveals that in the Fiscal Year (FY) 2016 budget average nominal protection rate has declined to 25.8 percent from 26.7 percent in Fiscal Year 2015.
There is a safeguard mechanism since June 2010 when the government of Bangladesh appointed the chairman of the Bangladesh Tariff Commission (BTC) as the designated safeguard authority. The function of the safeguard authority is to investigate whether a surge in import of a particular product is hurting similar local product and recommend necessary remedial measures through imposition of safeguard duty.
Bangladesh has interesting experience with anti-dumping procedure following the imposition of anti-dumping duty by India on export of lead-acid batteries by the Bangladeshi Company, rahimafrooz, the Company took up the matter with the government. After a long delay of several years, Bangladesh government finally moved in January 2004 to the Dispute Settlement Body (DSB) of WTO to challenge the Indian Anti-dumping measure. WTO took the matter into cognizance and as part of WTO procedure DSB called India and Bangladesh for consultation. This is the first dispute involving an LDC Member as a principal party to a dispute. On 28 January 2004, Bangladesh requested consultations with India concerning a certain anti-dumping measure imposed by India on imports of lead acid batteries from Bangladesh. After the consultation stage, India unilaterally withdrew the antidumping duty in January 2005.
