India supports Canada on anti-dumping row with US

NEW DELHI: India and China have informed the World Trade Organisation (WTO) that they share concerns of Canada over the Bush administration not repealing a law in full under which the US has been imposing duties on imports and diverting the receipts to the domestic industry.

Under a ruling of the Dispute Settlement Body of the World Trade Organisation, the duties on imports collected after September 30 will no longer be subject to the Byrd Amendment.

Formally known as the Continued Dumping and Subsidy Offset Act of 2000 (CDSOA), the Byrd Amendment diverted money from the imposition of anti-dumping and countervailing duties from government coffers directly to companies that petitioned for those duties.

The law had offended several nations, including India, Canada, the EU, China and Thailand whose products were being subjected to anti-dumping duties.

While Canada has welcomed the fact that duties on imports collected after 30 September 2007 will no longer be subject to the Byrd Amendment, it "regretted" that duties collected before 1 October 2007 would continue to be distributed to the US industry.

Canada said, "it was disappointed that the US would not take action to repeal the Byrd Amendment in full," a WTO statement said.

It said Thailand, India and China also supported the Canadian cause. Others which opposed funding of the US domestic industry by duties on imported goods included Japan and Brazil.

The US industry would receive about 279 million dollars, according to the preliminary figures calculated by the US trade authorities.