Action only against smuggled Chinese goods — Govt

The Government could only take preventive measures in case of those Chinese goods smuggled through borders and Singapore, Hong Kong and Dubai ports, he said inaugurating the Engineering and Commodities Fair here at Pragati Maidan.

"The Government can enforce printing of maximum retail price (MRP) in case of China-imported goods or can put the products under Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) for quality checks, but cannot stop sale of cheap products through legal means as it is not unlawful", he said.

He, however, said under-invoicing and low-quality of goods would be dealt with strongly.

Meanwhile, a senior official from China’s ministry of foreign trade and economic co-operation told PTI in Beijing, "Both sides will be able to remove this obstacle through common efforts" adding that China had so far not taken any similar measures against Indian goods.

He said the Chinese Government had all along opposed the dumping activities in international trade and had severly dealt with the Chinese enterprises which indulged in dumping.

"At the same time, the Chinese Government opposes the implementation of trade protectionism on the pretext of anti-dumping measures", Wang Xin of the China’s foreign trade ministry said.

Out of 74 cases of anti-dumping India has filed so far in the last five years, 31 cases are against China.

"In order to unilaterally protect the domestic products, the Chinese exports should not be targeted for anti-dumping", Wang Xin said.

He said such a situation had not only caused great loss to the legitimate interests of China’s production and export business, but had also influenced it’s normal foreign trade developement.

Chinese ambassador to India Zhou Gang told reporters here that his government had already taken up the matter with the commerce ministry offcials and he expected some preventive action to be taken soon to restore the confidence of Chinese businessmen in the country.

"Such things act as deterrents to bilateral relations when the present level of Indo-Chinese trade is showing signs of improvement", he said adding that trade between both the countries during the first nine months of the current fiscal had already touched two billion dollar.

Industry sources said the issue of anti-dumping had been hyped without any official support of proven anti-dumping cases adding that much of the smuggled Chinese goods entered the country through traders and not through industry.

"There have been reports of dumping of chemicals, textiles by Chinese companies but no consumer goods have so far been dumped as of now", sources said.