KARACHI, March 5: The European Commission has imposed 13.1 per cent definitive anti-dumping duty on bed linen imports from Pakistan with immediate effect. The punitive duty will remain effective for a period of five years.
Under Council Regulation (EC) No397/2004 of March 2, 2004, appearing in the official journal of the European Union the anti-dumping duty on Pakistani bed linen will be effective from March 5, 2004.
"This means that from today all the bed linen shipments going to EU member states will be subjected to 13.1 per cent punitive duty, thereby putting our exporters at disadvantageous position against their competitors from other countries," lamented a leading bed linen exporter.
Last month Pakistan narrowly lost by one vote when 15 EU member states cast their votes on the proposed 13.1 per cent anti-dumping duty by the EU commission. There was a tie of seven votes on each side but Ireland being chairman had to technically throw its weight in favour of the imposition of the duty.
The Cotton and Allied Textile Industries of the European Commission - Euro coton - had lodged a complaint in November 2002, about dumping of bed linen resulting in material injury to local industry, and demanded initiation of an anti-dumping proceedings.
Subsequently, the European Commission (EC) on December 18, 2002, through a notice announced the initiation of an anti-dumping proceedings with regard to imports of bed linen of cotton fibres, pure or mixed with man-made fibres or flax (flax not being the dominant fibre), bleached, dyed or printed originating from Pakistan.
Out of 178 companies or exporters (Pakistani) extended their cooperation for carrying out investigation the EC selected six companies only and fixed October 1, 2001 and September 30, 2002, as investigation period.
It is worth noting that the EC has admitted in its investigation report that during the verification of the second company, the Commission has received an anonymous life threatening letter addressed personally to the officials carrying out the verifications in Pakistan.
The report went on to say: "With regard to the specific, personal nature of the life threatening letter received by the Commission officials, the Commission considered that the necessary conditions to carry out the verifications were not met and that these circumstances significantly impeded the investigation. Consequently, the verification visits had to be interrupted."
It further stated that for these reasons, it was only possible to carry out a full verification at the premises of one exporting producer, while a partial verification was carried out at the premises of another exporting producer.
But the question is: can the Commission claim that it had met all the legal, moral or otherwise minimum required conditions laid down in any statute book prior to pronouncing judgment or sentence which in this case is a punitive duty, another exporter asserted.
By imposing such punitive duties the EC has not only narrowly kept its focus on its domestic industry, but had totally ignored a fact that poor countries like Pakistan could not fight terrorism if they fail to provide jobs to their unemployed youth.
Former chairman, Pakistan Bedwear Exporters Association (PBEA), Shabir Ahmed was highly critical of the role played by the government of Pakistan in handling anti-dumping proceedings, which resulted in the imposition of 13.1pc punitive duty.
He said that the European Commission had over-played the issue of 'anonymous life threatening letter.' Shabir Ahmed said: "can the Commission authentically pin point the source of this letter which may also had been arranged by the European industry to sabotage the investigations?"
The performance of the Ministry of Commerce is also not worth mentioning as its officials generally remained pre-occupied in arranging and making foreign trips but did little for the country, he said. The Secretary Commerce along with other officials took a flying visit to European capital at such a time when most of the decisions had already been taken by the EC.
Secondly, Shabir Ahmed said that these officials only met high-ups in the Commission but did not lobby with those who sit back to keep the files moving for achieving required results.
Above all, he said the economic minister's slot at Brussels was lying vacant for the last four months and there was no body to safeguard economic interest of the country at a juncture when quota free era is around the corner (January 1, 2005).
"I would put a question to our bureaucracy that can any exporter compete with 13.1 per cent punitive duty and 10 per cent customs duty?" He further said that the ten East European nations would also join the EU from May 1.
