Anti-dumping Bill to be presented to parliament

A finalized draft of the Countervailing Duties and Safeguards Bill will be forwarded for Parliamentary consideration soon, a high-level bureaucrat said. “The countervailing duties and safeguards legislation which the Department of Commerce has finalized will go through the parliamentary process,” Commerce Department Director General Sonali Wijeratne said.

She noted that this anti-dumping measure would strengthen both the offensive and defensive trade lines of the country. A similar Bill was forwarded to parliament in 2006, but was rejected, which was surprising given the protectionist measures taken by the past regime. Protectionism ensures that consumers pay higher at times for sub-par products, since the country’s industries gets secluded from the high-tech competitiveness present in the world at large. But many local industries are of the view that Sri Lanka requires strong anti dumping laws to protect the domestic industries. The international law on anti-dumping was drafted primarily by Americans and Europeans. Most of the emerging economies like India, Brazil and China are already practicing it with the view of protecting local industries. Both President Maithripala Sirisena and Finance Minister Ravi Karunanayake recently said that consumers must be placed above the industries, and that huge import duties will be removed to give consumers high quality products at lower prices.