Bid to tighten anti-dumping rules

Date: 18/03/1999

By Simon Taylor

EU TRADE officials are working on plans to tighten up anti-dumping rules to prevent a repeat of last year's row over cotton duties.

If accepted, the new regulations would clarify which products could be hit by duties and make it more difficult for trade associations to force investigations into alleged dumping.

The discussions have been welcomed by European importers as a step towards overhauling the EU's dumping rules. "We hope the member states will ask the European Commission to make a proposal for amendments," said Hendrik Abma, director of the Foreign Trade Association (FTA), which represents major European department stores and mail order companies. "The anti-dumping regulation is old-fashioned and does not take into account the economic realities of businesses operating on a global basis."

Following an initiative by France, the Netherlands, Finland and Spain, trade officials held their first discussion last week on a series of proposals to make the EU's anti-dumping regime "clearer and more transparent".

Officials said the initiative focused on aspects of the rules which offered scope for interpretation and had led to misunderstandings between governments and the Commission in the past.

One of the issues to be tackled is the definition of "like products" which can be hit with duties. The FTA has challenged Commission decisions to impose duties in recent years on the grounds that its definition of like products is too general. The evidence needed for an investigation into alleged dumping to be launched will also be examined.