ISLAMABAD, Aug 10: The business community of Pakistan will have to understand and come to terms with the new international rule-based and transparent trading system under the WTO in their own interest and that of the country
, National Tariff Commission chairman Dr Faizullah Khilji stressed here on Tuesday.
He was speaking at a one-day workshop on "Anti-dumping duties: law and procedure" held by the commission for the benefit of corporate lawyers and accountants as part of its endeavours to create awareness about the WTO and help the private sector develop capacity to deal with the emerging challenges.
The workshop is aimed at disseminating the salient features of WTO agreements. Such workshops have been organized earlier for the businessmen in collaboration with various trade bodies.
The local businessmen, Dr Khilji said, would have to bid farewell to the old method of lobbying and develop the capacity to assert its rights to free-trade by comprehending the WTO agreements, which are based on the principles of transparent settlement and adjudication.
This is pertinent also because the final decision on trade disputes lies with a Dispute Settlement Tribunal at Geneva, comprising non-Pakistanis. He described the history of GATT that was essentially called in 1947 by the western powers, learning from the two trade- centred world wars.
Pakistan, together with India, was able to figure as among the founders of GATT as successors to the British government in South Asia. As a signatory to the Final Act of the Uruguay Round, which marked the emergence of World Trade Organization, Pakistan was under an obligation to fulfil its commitments under the WTO agreements.
Accordingly, the NTC chairman observed Pakistan had reduced the tariffs from 125 per cent to 25 per cent. The same agreements also provided protection against unfair trade practices in the shape of anti-dumping law, countervailing duties against subsidies and safeguard provisions.
He, however, pointed out that anti-dumping measures predated the GATT. The first such legislation was enacted by the US Congress in 1789, that is, within a decade of the emergence on the world map of the United States as a sovereign state.
While anti-dumping duties law, which has been enacted by Pakistan in conformity with the WTO agreements, is a stable law, the NTC chairman pointed out, a domestic industry seeking to invoke it had to fulfil certain pre-conditions. These included the evidence of dumping and also the proof that such dumping has hurt the domestic industry.
On world scale, a total of 2,416 anti-dumping cases were initiated during the period 1995-2003, out of which 1,511 led to measures involving imposition of anti-dumping duties. Highest number of anti-dumping cases were lodged by India - 379. It was followed by the US with 329 cases.
In Pakistan, only four or five cases have been initiated so far. In three such cases, the Tariff Commission imposed anti-dumping duties. The reason was that an anti-dumping complaint requires precise information and, in case of a favourable decision, involves a possible inspection of records by the parties complained against.
The industry of Pakistan, he observed, was facing tough competition mainly on account of various factors, including inefficiency, high energy and port costs, lack of access to financing by the SMEs, absence of linkages with regional and other transnational production networks and poor education and inadequate training of workers.
