India has imposed anti-dumping duty on import of telecom gear from Chinese firms Huawei, ZTE Corp and Alcatel Lucent to protect domestic industry from cheap shipments.
The restrictive duty imposed on import of 'Synchronous Digital Hierarchy Transmission Equipment (SDHTE)' from China ranges between 9.42 per cent and 86.59 per cent of the landed (cost, insurance and freight or CIF) value.
India had first come out with anti-dumping duty of up to 266 per cent on import of telecom gear from China and Israel in December 2010 for five years.
The Department of Revenue yesterday issued a notification further extending the anti-dumping duty for five years, up to April 25, 2021.
An anti-dumping duty of 48.42 per cent has been slapped on import of SDHTE from ZTE Corp while the same on Shanghai-based Alcatel-Lucent will be 54.09 per cent.
Imports from Huawei Technologies Co faced an anti-dumping levy of 37.73 per cent.
However, anti-dumping duty on import from Israel's ECI Telecom has been withdrawn. The government had in December 2010 imposed anti-dumping duty on ECI, along with the Chinese firms.
In the previous notification, the anti-dumping duty ranged from 3 per cent to 266 per cent.
A 9.42 per cent anti-dumping duty was imposed on import of telecom equipment from any other manufacturer from Israel.
Hit hard by the anti-dumping duty, Shenzhen-based Huawei Technologies' now plans to set up a new telecom equipment manufacturing unit in the Sriperumbudur special economic zone (SEZ).
The notification said the quasi-judicial Directorate General of Anti-dumping and Allied Duties (DGAD) in its findings published in February this year stated that "there is continued dumping" of SDHTE by Huawei China, ZTE Corporation, Alcatel-Lucent Shanghai and Bell Co.
"Dumped imports were causing injury to the domestic industry in the period of investigation," it noted.
But in the case of HETC, China, "there is negligible dumping in the period of investigation (POI)... Therefore, there was no likelihood of dumping," it clarified.
DGAD had concluded in its probe that the domestic industry had suffered a material injury on account of dumped imports of the equipment.
Unlike safeguard duties, which are levied in a uniform way, anti-dumping duties vary from product to product and country to country.
Anti-dumping probes are initiated to check if domestic industries have been hurt because of a surge in cheap imports.
Countries impose duties within the multilateral regime of WTO. Anti-dumping measures are taken to ensure fair trade and provide a level-playing field to domestic players. It is not a measure to restrict imports or cause an unjustified increase in cost of products.
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