India increases tenure of anti-dumping duty

India has increased the tenure of anti-dumping duty on jute products Bangladesh exports to the neighbouring country for another five years.

In a new announcement India’s commerce ministry made on Friday, the country said the different rates, from US $6 to $352 per tonne, of anti-dumping duty will remain in place until 2027.

Private jute mill owners of Bangladesh have expressed their deep frustration with the decision. They said the crisis of exporting jute products from Bangladesh to India will reemerge for this decision.

They also apprehended that owners of some more jute mills will be forced to shut down their factories.

Speaking to Prothom Alo, Bangladesh Jute Mills Association (BJMA) former president Mohammad Mahbubur Rahman Patwari said, “The export of jute products of Bangladesh will face a big threat because of India’s extending the tenure of anti-dumping duty anew. The export to India was already declining for the last five years due to the already existing anti-dumping duty. Now we will lose the market completely.”

Mohammad Mahbubur Rahman Patwari also said, “Our jute products are generally exported to India, China and Turkey. Taking the chance of India’s imposition of anti-dumping duty on Bangladeshi jute products since 2017, China and Turkey have decreased the prices of their jute products. For this the jute product exporters of this country are already facing a stiffly tilted challenge to retain the market. As a result many jute mills in Bangladesh have already been shut down.”

“Besides, no appeal is being made against this decision of imposing anti-dumping duty due to a historic relations with India. At the same time, the export of raw jute to India is also not being stopped. As a result, we are seeing that they are doing good business importing raw jute from us but we are incurring huge losses,” he added.

The Indian government imposed the anti-dumping duty on Bangladeshi jute products for the first time in January 2017, from US $19 to $352, when Indian businesspersons alleged that the Bangladeshi jute mill owners have been exporting products to India at lower price than the production cost.

Bangladeshi exporters have been saying since then that this decision of India is illogical as no private jute mill owner would count losses selling products at lower price than the production cost.

As per the export information, around 60 per cent of jute products Bangladesh exports goes to India.  But the share started to plummet since India’s imposition of anti-dumping duty in 2017.

Many jute mills were shut down because of this.