Anti-Dumping Committee Holds First 2020 Meeting

The WTO’s Committee on Anti-Dumping Practices met on 28 October to review members’ notifications of new or amended anti-dumping laws and regulations and reports on anti-dumping actions. The meeting was the first for the committee in 2020, following the cancellation of its April meeting due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

The committee reviewed new notifications of legislation submitted by Argentina, Bolivia, Costa Rica, Ghana, Laos, the United Kingdom, the United States and Viet Nam and continued its review of the legislative notifications of Cameroon, Japan, Kenya, Liberia and the United Arab Emirates previously reviewed by the committee.

As is the usual practice in the Anti-Dumping Committee, delegations raised questions about the practices of other members in reviewing their semi-annual notifications on anti-dumping actions: the initiation of investigations, the imposition of provisional and final anti-dumping duties and the review of existing anti-dumping measures. 

With respect to semi-annual reports covering the periods 1 July-31 December 2019 and 1 January-30 June 2020, 44 members notified the committee of anti-dumping actions taken in each of these two periods, with 16 reporting no new anti-dumping actions in each period. The chair of the committee, Ms Lenka Šustrová of the Czech Republic, urged members that had not submitted reports of actions to do so promptly.

Questions were raised by several members regarding actions in the semi-annual reports submitted by China, Egypt, the European Union, Mexico, the Philippines, the United Kingdom and the United States.

In addition to the semi-annual reports, the WTO's Anti-Dumping Agreement requires members to submit reports without delay on all preliminary or final anti-dumping actions taken. Reports during the review period were received from Argentina, Armenia, Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, the Dominican Republic, Egypt, the European Union, India, Israel, Japan, Kazakhstan, Korea, the Kyrgyz Republic, Mexico, Morocco, New Zealand, Pakistan, the Philippines, the Russian Federation, South Africa, Chinese Taipei, Turkey, Ukraine, the United Kingdom, the United States and Viet Nam.

Questions were raised by several members regarding preliminary and final actions reported by Canada, South Africa, the United States and Australia.

In a separate agenda item, Brazil expressed concerns regarding the anti-dumping measures imposed by Mexico on imports of bond paper from Brazil.

Australia and the United States also introduced an informal discussion on members' anti-dumping procedures during the COVID-19 pandemic.

At the end of the meeting, members elected Maarit Keitanen of Finland as the new chair of the committee.