Art Paper Imports Under Probe for Dumping Charge
Petition moved by Bilt group
The director-general of anti-dumping has launched an investigation into the alleged dumping of medium weight and high weight art paper and art card.
The action puts a question mark on the annual import of 50,000 tonnes of art paper, valued at Rs 3bn, primarily used by the publishing industry. Shipments in transit will be either speeded up to seek immediate clearance or orders for delivery from September may be cancelled. The investigation is targets the entire spectrum of exporters ranging from Indonesia to the 15 existing members of the European Union and the 13 candidate members. Only Japan and Canada are not all the list.
The petition was moved by the Ballarpur group represented by its companies in Gurgaon, Yamunanagar and Coimbatore. The group is the sole producer of art paper in India. The group as claimed as many as six injury marks in support of the impact of dumping on sales profile margins and capacity utilization.
Before the expected imposition of anti-dumping duty, there are two slabs of 5% and 50.8% duty for lightweight art paper and medium to heavy art paper respectively. With the antidumping duty the incidence would be more than 100% for medium to heavy art paper and will remain 5% for the lightweight paper. This is likely to encourage mis-declaration of imports thus leading to a huge pressure on administration and judiciary.
