India has imposed an anti-dumping duty on four Chinese chemicals so far in June, so that domestic players with businesses in these areas can be safeguarded from unfairly priced imports from Beijing.
The Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Customs, Department of Revenue, in separate notifications, has imposed a five-year anti-dumping duty on the import of these four chemicals from China.
The authorities officially imposed the restrictions after the Directorate General of Trade Remedies (DGTR), an arm of the commerce ministry, made recommendations earlier to do the same.
Which chemicals will face an anti-dumping duty?
India imposed these anti-dumping duties four chemicals, including PEDA (which is used in herbicide); Acetonitrile (which is used in the pharma sector); Vitamin -A Palmitate, and Insoluble Sulphur.
What will be the new duties?
Here is a list of duties imposed by India on Chinese chemical imports –
- In case of herbicide chemical PEDA, the anti-dumping duty will range from ₹1,305.6 to ₹2017.9 per tonne, the government said in its notification.
- A duty of up to ₹481 per tonne has been imposed on Acetonitrile imported from China, Russia and Taiwan, it said.
- Similarly, the government has imposed a duty of up to ₹20.87 per kilogram duty on Vitamin -A Palmitate imported from China, European Union and Switzerland.
- Lastly, an anti-dumping duty of up to ₹358 per tonne on the import of Insoluble Sulphur, which is used in the tyre industry, and imported from China and Japan.
Anti-dumping probes are conducted by countries to determine whether domestic industries have been hurt because of a surge in cheap imports.
As a countermeasure, they impose these duties under the multilateral regime of the Geneva-based World Trade Organisation (WTO). Both India and China are members of the multilateral organisations, which deals with global trade norms.
The duty is aimed at ensuring fair trading practices and creating a level-playing field for domestic producers vis-a-vis foreign producers and exporters.
India is taking steps to boost domestic manufacturing and cut imports from China as the country’s trade deficit with China widened to USD 99.2 billion during 2024-25.
In the last fiscal, India’s exports to China contracted 14.5 per cent to ₹14.25 billion as against ₹16.66 billion in 2023-24. The imports, however, rose by 11.52 per cent in 2024-25 to ₹113.45 billion against ₹101.73 billion in 2023-24.