INS takes on newsprint firms on anti-dumping controversy

The advertisement was issued by the Indian Paper Makers Association, Indian Agro Paper Mills Association, Indian Newsprint Manufacturers Association (INMA), Indian Paper Mills Association and the All India Small Paper Mills Association. Of these, only the INMA can actually have a locus standing in the matter since the other associations do not produce newsprint. The picture is mixed in this case also. Of all the members of the INMA, only four public sector units make newsprint the other members of the INMA make newsprint substitutes. According to INS, these associations have tried to “mislead the public by mischievously clubbing the figures, issues, so-called problems and concerns relating to newsprint” with other problems faced by the paper industry. INS says that newsprint and paper are different commodities and therefore the reference to all other paper industry issues while talking about anti-dumping duties is “grossly unfair.”

Murali said the designated authority on anti-dumping had overlooked the period when newsprint prices were very high. He said the duties imposed by the authority were not relevant in the current context. “The period of investigation was a short seven month period — April 1998 to October 1998 — and has no relevance to present ground realities.”

INS said the Government has been giving more than adequate protection to domestic newsprint manufacturers in form of a ten per cent import duty on newsprint from October 1996. It is time now to reduce duties instead of increasing them, INS said.

“The Finance Ministry had, after due application of mind, decided on a trigger mechanism at the level of $575 per tonne, when the protective ten per cent duty would be reviewed and withdrawn. The present landed price of $550 per tonne plus $55 as duty takes the level past the $575 per tonne mark. It is therefore time for the withdrawal of the ten per cent duty,” Murali said.

The decision to impose anti-dumping duty averaging $140 per tonne on imports from the United States, Canada and Russia was based on preliminary anti-dumping investigations which are “seriously flawed and one-sided,” he said. INS is also upset at the fact that the designated authority has not made available “evidence presented by the newsprint manufacturers to the affected parties, namely, the newspapers, as required under the rules.”