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Foreign trade bill referred to House panel

BS Economy Bureau

The Foreign Trade (Development and Regulation) Amendment Bill, 2001, which seeks to permit the Centre to reimpose restrictions in case of surge in imports, has been referred to the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Commerce.

A Rajya Sabha communique said that the committee headed by Sikandar Bakht at its sitting on May 21 had decided to invite views and suggestions on the provisions of the Bill that was introduced in the upper House on April 24 this year.

The Bill also seeks to empower the central government to make rules to identify products, which, due to surge in imports, are causing injury to the domestic industry as also the rules to determine the causes of injury for imposition of QRs.

However, QRs cannot be imposed on an article coming from a "developing country", as notified by the government, till imports from the said country does not exceed three per cent of the total imports to the country.

In case the said product is coming from more than one "developing country", the aggregate of such imports from all the countries should be cumulatively be over 9 per cent of the total imports.

The Bill also provides for the government to impose QRs for a period of four years, which can be extended to a maximum period of 10 years. In the WTO-regime, the Agreement on Safeguards permits members to impose QRs by way of emergency action if imports of particular products increase in a manner that cause or threaten to cause serious injury to the domestic industry.

With effect from April 1, this year, the government dismantled QRs on over 10,000 tariff lines. With a view to take remedial action in wake of removal of QRs, the government had decided to introduce the Bill.

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