DGTR begins procedural changes to improve ease of doing business

The Directorate General of Trade Remedies (DGTR) has initiated several systemic and procedural changes for improving the ease of doing business and reducing the compliance burden on stakeholders, the commerce ministry said on Tuesday.

This has been achieved through an extensive exercise towards simplification of rules, processes and procedures relating to trade remedy, it said in a statement.

DGTR, an arm of the ministry, is a national entity dealing with all kinds of trade remedial measures -- anti-dumping, countervailing, and safeguard.

These duties help provide a level playing field to the domestic industry against the unfair trade practices like dumping, subsidisation and surge in imports.

Measures taken by DGTR include simplified formats and questionnaires to be filed by producers/exporters, importers, users and domestic industry in trade remedy investigations, the ministry said.

For handholding of Indian industries, especially MSME's, DGTR has introduced procedure of sampling for domestic producers in fragmented industry in anti-dumping/ countervailing duty investigation, it added.

''New avenues have been explored by conducting the Safeguard Quantitative Restrictions investigation, Bilateral Safeguard Investigations, investigations on suo-motu basis,'' it said.

It also noted that suo-moto investigations are challenging given the structure of the domestic industry.

''These investigations ensure an equitable space for various stakeholders,'' it said, adding that in 2021-22, final findings were issued in three trade remedy investigations which were initiated on suo-moto basis after more than two decades.

Duties have since been imposed in all the three cases.

Further, the statement said the level playing field provided by the government based on recommendations made by DGTR enabled a large number of industries in capacity additions, significant direct and indirect employment protection and generation.

As many as 56 final findings have been issued and 35 investigations have been initiated since April 2021.

It also stated that the Trade Defense Wing of DGTR has been proactively engaged in defending the interests of Indian exporters in investigations conducted by other countries against Indian exports.

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