EU dumping duty on bed linen unjustified: Apcea

European Union (EU) rules allow reopening and investigation in the case of anti-dumping duty when new countries are joining the Union.
The Ministry of Commerce, therefore, should make immediate efforts to knock off the arbitrarily imposed anti-dumping duty on bed linen export from Pakistan, said Ahmad Kamal, chairman All Pakistan Cloth Exporters Association (Apcea) talking to newsmen here on Monday.
No justification warranted the levy of duty as the Commission investigators failed to establish dumping margin, he said.
The Pakistani exporters had fully complied with the questionnaire, issued by the European Commission and the analysis of the data and calculations of different price components were thoroughly cross-checked by the Commission and it failed to find any fault with export price mechanism or any speck of dumping, he said.
Further investigation were mounted and physical audit was carried out by the inspectors; even this exercise failed to establish any dumping phenomenon, he stated and added that notwithstanding the infructuous efforts, the EC arbitrarily clamped 13.1 percent duty.
Now that the duty has been levied the best strategy to offset the negative impact should be launched immediately, demanded Ahmad Kamal.
He appreciated the efforts so far made by the commerce minister for establishing one-to-one contact with Pascal Lamay and immediately taking up the matter with the Commission.
It was the result of the commerce minister's personal efforts and of vice-chairman EPB Tariq Iqbal Puri's lobbying at the European capitals that in the final count Pakistan was able to secure equal votes at 7-7 and the fate of duty was decided by casting of vote only.
The Apcea chairman emphasised the need for immediate launching of damage control action to avert the loss to the country's textile exports.
He suggested that a case must immediately be filed in WTO court to get relief from this forum.
He also suggested that "by way of convincing the Commission of our plea we could request for re-sampling and re-audit of our bed linen products and export price mechanism."
Ahmad Kamal urged the Ministry of Commerce to tackle this matter of vital importance for the country's textile exports on priority basis.
He urged that commerce minister Humayun Akhtar Khan should personally oversee and monitor the review operation and save this topmost export sector from the total collapse.