Govt to make changes in rules of trade remedies to make them more effective Coal import declines about 4% to 19 mn tonnes in July

NEW DELHI: The government will soon make changes in the rules of trade remedies such as antidumping and safeguard, for making them more effective to protect the domestic industry, an official said.

The changes in the rules of antidumping, countervailing or anti-subsidy and safeguard have been approved by the commerce ministry and will soon be notified by the revenue department, the official said.

These are trade remedy measures provided under the global trade norms of the World Trade Organization to protect the domestic industry in case of dumping of goods, significant jump in imports, and subsidised imports.

According to the changes, the government will remove lesser duty rules (LDR), which will pave the way for Indian investigating authorities to impose anti-dumping and countervailing duty to the full extent of dumping and subsidy margins, respectively.

Tariff rate quota will be introduced in the safeguard rules, which will provide greater flexibility to the government in operating and administering safeguard mechanism. Further, as per the approved proposal, anti-circumvention provision will be introduced in the CVD (countervailing duty) rules to address the issue of circumvention by foreign producers or exporters availing subsidy.

"These changes meet longstanding demands of Indian domestic industry and are expected to provide muchneeded support to the Indian manufacturing industry and give an impetus to Make-inindia campaign," the official added.

These amendments will be notified by the revenue department after legal vetting. NEW DELHI: India's coal import declined by 3.7 per cent to 18.93 million tonnes (MT) in July this year from 19.67 MT in the same month a year ago.

Of the total coal imports in July 2019, non-coking coal shipment was at 12.66 MT, coking coal's was at 4.17 MT, among others, according to a provisional compilation by mjunction services based on monitoring of vessels' positions and data received from shipping companies.

"Against a modest increase in import in June, volumes during July dropped because of softer demand for power during monsoon with thermal power generation falling 7.2 per cent during the month," mjunction MD and CEO Vinaya Varma said. However, with a fall in coal stock at power stations during July and August, imports may firm up in coming days, Varma said.

During the April-july period of the ongoing fiscal, the import of thermal coal was up 13.4 per cent to 60.97 MT, against 53.76 MT reported for the same period last fiscal. For coking coal, the volume imported during April-july of FY'20 was 17.73 MT, slightly higher than 17.25 MT imported during the corresponding period last financial year.