Anti-dumping duty on hydrogen peroxide

•  India imposed anti-dumping duty on export of hydrogen peroxide from Bangladesh, second one after imposing the same duty on jute goods on January 5, creating concerns among exporters of losing export earnings and hitting hard the local industry.
• Director General of Anti-Dumping and Allied Duty of Indian commerce ministry notified the final findings imposing the duty ranging from $27.81 to $91.47 per tonne of hydrogen peroxide, a textile chemical, produced in Bangladesh.
• The DGAD has also imposed the duty on the product of Pakistan, Taiwan, South Korea, Indonesia and Thailand.
• The countries will have three months for filing appeal before the Customs Excise and Service Tax Appellate Tribunal against the order.
• Imposition of anti-dumping duty on the product will hit hard Bangladesh’s export earnings from its neighbour as India is the main market of the product.
• Pakistan in March last year also imposed 12 per cent anti-dumping duty on export of hydrogen peroxide from Bangladesh.
• According to the Export Promotion Bureau, Bangladesh exported hydrogen peroxide worth $77 lakh in the fiscal year of 2014-2015.
• Of it, around $52 lakh of the total export earnings came from India while $14 lakh came from Pakistan.

About Hydrogen peroxide:

• Hydrogen peroxide is a colourless liquid, slightly more viscous than water.
• Hydrogen peroxide is the simplest peroxide.
• It is used as an oxidizer, bleaching agent and disinfectant. It is also used as ripening agent.
• Concentrated hydrogen peroxide, or “high-test peroxide”, is a reactive oxygen species and has been used as a propellant in rocketry.
• Hydrogen peroxide is unstable and slowly decomposes in the presence of base or a catalyst. Because of its instability, hydrogen peroxide is typically stored with a stabilizer in a weakly acidic solution.
• Hydrogen peroxide is found in biological systems including the human body. Enzymes that use or decompose hydrogen peroxide are classified as peroxidases.

About Anti dumping duty:

• Anti dumping duty is imposed on dumping. Dumping is, in general, a situation of international price discrimination, where the price of a product when sold in the importing country is less than the price of that product in the market of the exporting country.
• Dumping is an unfair trade practice which can have a distortive effect on international trade.
• The consequent economic and financial impact of the dumped imports on the concerned Indian industry can be demonstrated by: decline in output, loss of sales, loss of market share, Reduced profits, Decline in productivity, Decline in capacity utilization, Reduced return on investments, Price effects, adverse effects on cash flow, inventories, employment, wages, growth, investments, ability to raise capital, etc.
• Anti-dumping is a measure to rectify the situation arising out of the dumping of goods and its trade distortive effect.
• The use of anti-dumping measure as an instrument of fair competition is permitted by the WTO.
• Anti-dumping is an instrument for ensuring fair trade and is not a measure of protection per se for the domestic industry.

By: Vishal