India ranks first in imposing final anti-dumping duties during the first six months of 2008, an increase of 78 per cent over the same period last year, the World Trade Organization Secretariat said in its latest report today.

India resorted to 16 final anti-dumping measures in the first six months of this year compared to eight new measures by the European Union.

During the same period, Indonesia took recourse to five final anti-dumping measures, followed by four each by Argentina, China and Ukraine, three each by Brazil and South Africa, and two each by the United States, Egypt and Korea, and one by Canada.

In effect, 12 members applied 54 new final anti-dumping measures during the first half of this year as compared with 51 measures in the same period last year.

WTO members are entitled to levy anti-dumping measures when exporters attempt to sell their products below normal price but before clamping the duties they have to ensure that there is sufficient dumping to cause material injury to its domestic industry.

Besides, anti-dumping measures are essential to contain "predatory dumping" by exporting countries.

The latest figures reflected a declining trend for some members like the United States, China, Canada and Argentina.

But in the case of India, the EU, Indonesia, Korea and South Africa, among others, the latest figure reveals an increasing use of final anti-dumping measures, which have a chilling effect on the trade for at least two to three years.

In terms of initiating anti-dumping actions, which is the first step before members decide to take initial and final anti-dumping measures, Turkey ranks first with 13 anti-dumping initiations followed by the US with 12, India (11), the EU and Argentina (10 each), Brazil (7), Australia and Colombia (4 each).

Altogether, 16 WTO members reported they initiated a total of 85 new investigations during the first six months this year, compared with 61 initiations last year, a sharp increase of 39 per cent.

China is the frequent target for both investigations and final duties with nearly half of initiations were targeted against the Chinese products during the first six months. The most frequent products subjected to new investigations are metal sector (21 initiations), the textile sector (20) initiations and the chemicals sector (10) initiations.

India is in the forefront seeking major changes in the anti-dumping provisions to ensure that it does not become a non-trade barrier, said an Indian trade negotiator.

Over the years, the US heavily used AD measures by adopting a controversial methodology called the zeroing practice to calculate dumping margins. Under the zeroing methodology, the US chose not to take into consideration the negative margins between the domestic prices and normal price into consideration.

Consequently, the dumping margins were invariably inflated, a practice that was condemned by the WTO's highest appeals body frequently.

However, the US continues to oppose attempts to scrap the zeroing methodology despite an overwhelming demand from members during the ongoing Doha trade negotiations.

• India and the WTO: News and Issues