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Dumping duty on Chinese dry pencil cells marginally hiked

BS Economy Bureau

India has marginally hiked the anti-dumping duty on dry pencil cells imported from China.

In its final findings, the Directorate General on Anti-Dumping and Allied Duties in the commerce department, proposed to fix anti-dumping duty on AA dry cell batteries to the difference between $74.75 per 1,000 pieces and the landed value of imports, from China, per 1,000 pieces.

In the preliminary investigations, notified on January 24 this year, the DGAD had fixed the anti-dumping duty as the difference between $75.25 per 1,000 pieces and the landed value of imports (from China) per 1,000 pieces.

Dry cell was the first consumer goods item to be slapped with anti-dumping duty. It was also the first instance when the DGAD decided to investigate dumping suo motu.

In the final findings issued on July 13, DGAD said dry cells were imported from China below their normal value, which resulted in a material injury to the Indian industry and was being threatened with further injury. The designated authority also said that as a result of significant price undercutting, the volume of imports was increasing which resulted in an increase in China's share.

During the period of investigation from April 1, 2000 to September 30, 2000, Chinese dry pencil cells were sold in the Indian market for a price ranging between Rs 1.50 and Rs 2 per piece, the DGAD said.

"Even though there may not be an immediate adverse effect on the production and capacity utilisation because of the expanding domestic market, the dumped imports are causing a lot of erosion in the marketshare of the domestic industry," the DGAD said in a notification.

It also said Chinese imports started increasing once import regulations were done away with when the import of dry cells was put under the open general licence from April last year.

The investigations revealed that the import of dry pencil cells from China has been steadily rising from 5.37 million pieces in 1997-98 to 36.6 million in 1998-99 and 46.8 million during the period of investigation.

As a share of the total demand, Chinese imports increased from 0.97 per cent in 1997-98 to 4.89 per cent a year later and 12.93 per cent during the period of investigation.

On the other hand, the demand for dry pencil cells which was estimated at 556 million pieces in 1997-98 rose to 748 million pieces in 1998-99 and was pegged at 362 million pieces during the period of investigation.

The DGAD has concluded that exporters from China have freely available capacities and were holding significant inventories. "Further, inventories of the subject product (AA dry cells) are rapidly increasing with the domestic industry and their stockists and dealers," the notification said.

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