Bangladesh has been at the forefront in the last decade in embracing prescriptions for trade liberalisation. However, Bangladesh's experience after such liberalisation has not been a happy one. It suffers a huge trade imbalance with its biggest neighbour, India. But the Indian authorities have done little so far to actually reduce duties on Bangladeshi products. Besides, India also has set up non-tariff barriers against Bangladeshi products. Even such an extreme step such as the anti-dumping duty was used by the Indian authorities against Bangladeshi exporters of batteries when that product showed promise in the Indian market.
Therefore, time has come for Bangladesh to take further tariff lowering steps only after due serious evaluation of the impact of the same on its economy. Bangladesh is a signatory to the World Trade Organisation (WTO) rules and the WTO rules require its members to remain steadfast in the path of trade liberalisation. But under the WTO guidelines members countries are under no compulsion not to take actions against dumping.
Bangladesh could take advantage of these flexibility in the WTO rules to give legitimate protection to its domestic industries. Specially, it could adopt an anti-dumping law to this end as was adopted years ago by its neighbours and even the developed countries.
Shafique Ahmed
Dhanmondi, Dhaka
Anti-dumping law
FE Team | Published: August 26, 2007 00:00:00 | Updated: February 01, 2018 00:00:00
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