April 2, 2003	Wednesday	Muharram 29, 1424

FAISALABAD, April 1: All Pakistan Cloth Exporters Association (APCEA) chairman Khurram Iftikhar has said that Pakistani exporters must understand the anti-dumping law to emphatically defend themselves and survive in the international markets.

Inaugurating a two-day workshop organized by the Export Promotion Bureau (EPB) in collaboration with the National Tariff Commission (NTC) here on Tuesday, he said bedlinen was Pakistan’s most popular textile export item all over the world which had been considered to be subject to the law of anti-dumping.

He said various countries were trying to impose anti-dumping duty on bedlinen. South Africa had imposed anti-dumping duty on bedlinen at 32 per cent in 2001, while Peru has issued notice for imposing anti-dumping duty on it.

He pointed out that Pakistan became victim of this non-tariff barrier only because “our industry failed to tackle the anti-dumping threats and their behaviour to avoid contesting, encouraged importing countries to freely levy anti-dumping duty on Pakistani bedlinen

The APCEA chairman pointed out that the anti-dumping duties were imposed on Pakistan mainly on the plea of growing unemployment in the importing countries or that the home industry was in danger.

Mr Khurram said Pakistani exporters should fully equip themselves with latest procedures and rules and should try to exploit these laws for their own benefits.

Dr Faizullah Khilji, chairman of the NTC, explained in details the regime and introduction to the trade defence laws and said that the seminar had been arranged to give in-depth knowledge to the exporters to fully understand and exploit the anti-dumping laws for their own benefits.