LAHORE: All Pakistan Textile Mills Association (APTMA) Acting Chairman Wisal A. Monnoo has said the successful representation by APTMA of its case has led the National Tariff Commission (NTC) not to impose anti-dumping duty on import of Polyester Staple Fibre (PSF) from China.
He has expressed the hope that the non-imposition of anti-dumping duty will have a positive impact on textile imports and will provide a long term advantage to the textile industry, as polyester use is bound to increase.
It may be noted that the National Tariff Commission initiated anti-dumping investigation in June 2012 against the PSF import from China on application of the domestic PSF industry.
Acting Chairman APTMA said the PSF is an important industrial material. After value-addition on the imported fibre, he said, the textile products are exported. Further, he noted that export worth billions of dollars is possible due to competitiveness of Pakistan’s textile industry in spite of the odds it operates against. The international textile market is intensely competitive and operates on very low margins. Import of PSF was a necessity in view of the acute domestic production shortfall of PSF marketing to 150,000 tons per annum against local suppressed demand of about 500,000 tons per annum, he added.
In this scenario, said Monnoo, imposition of anti-dumping duty operates against the international competitiveness of Pakistan textile products predominantly meant for export. Therefore, he said, APTMA and other interested parties opposed the imposition of anti-dumping duty and evidenced before the National Tariff Commission the absence of the pre-requisite conditions for the imposition of the anti-dumping duty.
However, provisional anti-dumping duty continued for four months. Domestic PSF industry was vociferous in their pleading for imposition of anti-dumping duty as it gives them a margin of protection by which they raise their domestic prices. The imposition of anti-dumping duty on industrial raw material besides making imports costlier have the effect of raising domestic raw material prices to a level where they become unviable for the textile industry. This is one of the reasons that the aberration in the use of polyester to its full potential could not be corrected.
