Pakistan to challenge South Africa’s decision in WTO

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan has decided to challenge the South Africa’s decision to impose anti-dumping duty on import of Pakistani manufactured cement into the World Trade Organization (WTO).
According to official announcement made here on Monday, the Ministry of Commerce decided to challenge South African decision to impose preliminary anti-dumping duty (PD) on the import of Pakistani cement in the WTO.
During May this year, South Africa imposed various rates of PD on Pakistani cement exports ranging from 15%-68% anti-dumping duty on the import of Pakistani cement. South African government considered that these imports were causing injury to the local cement industry.
Pakistan, however considers that these measures by the South African government are inconsistent with several provisions of the various WTO agreement.
Therefore, on the directions of the Minister for Commerce Engr. Khurram Dastgir Khan Pakistan has decided to initiate WTO dispute settlement proceedings to safeguard its trade interests. The basis of Pakistan’s argument is that the injury determination mechanism followed by South African authorities (ITAC) is flawed and does not reflect true analysis of the situation.
The South African authorities used an extended period of investigation of four years (normal is three years) for causation analysis and didn’t properly examine the evidence in the light of trends over that period.
In addition, Pakistan considers that South Africa failed to examine the relationship between the alleged dumping and the worsening of condition of the domestic industry especially by failing to consider the effects of the decartelization of the domestic cement producers.
It also didn’t properly examine the entire product under investigation and instead limited its injury analysis to bagged cement and disregarded sales by the domestic industry of the bulk cement.
The South African authorities didn’t provide a fair opportunity to Pakistani cement exporters to defend their case denying access to the trade statistics.
Pakistan is the top exporter of cement to South Africa and as a result of imposition of anti-dumping duty, Pakistan’s cement exports to South Africa are continuously on the decline.
These measures will be challenged at the WTO due to complaints lodged with Secretary Commerce Mohammad Arbab Shehzad by Pakistani exporters of cement.
Pakistan’s Permanent Representative to the WTO Dr. Tauqir Shah has written a letter to his South African counterpart in Geneva for formal consultations.
Any dispute at the WTO begins with a request for consultations and the dispute has a minimum of two stages. First is the consultations stage without involvement of WTO secretariat which involves a combination of politico-legal-economic claims. Second is the panel stage, with the involvement of WTO secretariat and is purely based upon legal and economic claims.
Pakistan has initiated the dispute with South Africa formally at the WTO on the preliminary anti-dumping duties imposed on Pakistani exports by South Africa.
Since March Pakistan has been chasing the South Africans both legally within South Africa and at the diplomatic level.
Secretary Commerce and Permanent Representative to WTO Dr. Tauqir Shah met South African Ambassador Xavier Carim during Pakistan Trade Policy Review this year and the duty on cement was discussed. Commerce Minister Engr. Khurram Dastgir Khan also discussed the issue with South African counterpart in Paris in June this year at the margin of OECD event.