The federal government established Antidumping Appellate Tribunal last year under Section 64 of the Antidumping Duties Ordinance 2000. Former Justice Munir A Sheikh is the Chairman of the Tribunal, whereas former Justice Zawar Hussain Jaffery and Arshad Manzoor Khan, Advocate High Court are the members of the Tribunal.
The first case filed with the Tribunal pertains to domestic industry, which is producing HR products and is suffering injury due to dumping of investigated products imported from various sources. Up till now one hearing of the said case has been held. The hearing made it clear that the Tribunal is very analytical about various aspects of particular facts and its examination by the National Tariff Commission (the Commission).
This would lead to improvement in establishment and analysis of various facts of an antidumping case in future. After the establishment of the Tribunal, the Agreement on Implementation of Article VI of the General Agreement of Tariff and Trades stands fully implemented in Pakistan aimed at protecting the domestic industry of a member country against unfair trade practices of foreign producers/exporters. Now even after reduction of tariff on various imported products under any tariff rationalisation programme, the domestic industry would still be protected against likely adverse impact of dumped imports from any source.
The Commission is carrying out investigations under the Ordinance since 2001-02. Earlier there was no proper forum against the decisions of the Commission, except filing of written petitions with the higher courts. Now due to likely expeditious disposal of the cases by the Tribunal, timely relief would be available to the aggrieved parties which would also save precious time of all concerned.-PR
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