NEW DELHI, Oct 18: India is unlikely to withdraw its case against European Commission (EC) at the World Trade Organisation (WTO) on the unbleached cotton grey fabrics (UCF) anti-dumping duty issue until the EC gives an assurance that will not to resort to the measure again. Commerce Ministry sources said India would prefer to let its case, which is currently under consultation at WTO, stay, as EC has been repeatedly resorting to this non-tariff barrier since 1994.The latest thinking not to withdraw the case is despite European Union (EU) foreign ministers rejecting the EC proposal to impose definitive anti-dumping duties on UCF imports from India, Pakistan, China, Indonesia and Egypt. EU foreign ministers had decided on October 5 by a majority of eight to six to reject the EC proposal.India presented its case at WTO during the consultations before the organisation's director-general, last month. Textiles secretary Shymal Ghosh said EC would also get back to WTO to give their version. However, beforethat, EU rejected the proposal for the second time. It had earlier rejected a similar proposal in May last year.Special secretary N N Khanna, who is in charge of WTO affairs in the commerce ministry, told an industry meeting last week that EC had made it a habit to resort to anti-dumping measure on UCF time and again. "We viewed it as a sort of repeated harassment since EC would drop the proceedings one day and take up a fresh case the very next morning," he said.In November 1996 and April last, the EC had imposed provisional anti-dumping duties on UCF. The latest anti-dumping procedure was initiated a month after EU decided to drop an earlier initiative in 1997.Before that EC had launched investigations on UCF dumping from India in 1994 but dropped it after the complainant - Eurocotton, a lobby of European industries withdrew its complaint.Commerce Minister Ramakrishna Hegde told a meeting of Indian ambassadors to EU in Luxembourg that the UCF anti-dumping cases had been dropped by EU sinceIndia's case was strong. India has maintained that there were anomalies in the EC's calculations to arrive at a conclusion that dumping had taken place."Their method of sampling, calculation and determining profit margin was wrong," Indian Cotton Mills Federation secretary-general M P Gajaria said. Due to repeated anti-dumping proceedings initiated by the EC, India's UCF exports to the EU region declined to Rs 800 crore in 1997-98 from over Rs 1,200 crore in 1993-94. "We expect UCF exports to be revived through this measure and reach the earlier figure of Rs 1,200 crore," Ghosh said.The EC anti-dumping initiative was mainly forced by France and Italy. However, Germany and Britain opposed the proceedings tooth and nail, contending that the processing industry in the EU would be hit hard by anti-dumping duties.They also said any barrier to UCF imports could lead to increased shipments of processed cloth to the EU countries, thus affecting the region in the long run.Meanwhile, industry sources saidEC had violated the procedure for imposing anti-dumping duty on UCF by not notifying the date of initiation of the case in its notification published on July 11.
