The Indian Chemical Council (ICC) has called for amendment of dumping laws in certain areas that are of general nature cutting across several manufacturing sectors.

In a letter to the Department of Chemicals and Petrochemicals (DCPC), the ICC said the amendment should be in the following areas:

1. Introduction of circumvention law: If the foreign producers resort to circumvention of duties, the entire objective of imposition of dumping duties gets nullified. Domestic legislations of other major players such as Europe and the US have incorporated circumvention provisions in their domestic laws. Therefore, appropriate legal provisions should be incorporated to deal with the problems of circumvention.

2. A certain paragraph of a rule is required to be modified in order to provide that cost of price in India can be considered as an appropriate first basis for determination of normal value without exploring the possibilities of cost or price in market economy third country.

3. Provision may be made that designated authority shall not grant market economy status to a company in non-market economy country, unless such producer establishes that it has maintained its books of accounts consistent with international accounting standards.

4. The current legal provisions may be amended in order to provide that multiple hearings are not contemplated under the law and in case sufficient opportunity has been provided to an interested party to present its information either orally or in writing and in case the same has been adopted by the designated authority in arriving at the judgement, such judgement of the designated authority should not be considered inappropriate or bad merely because the designated authority passing the order has not heard the parties.