Pakistan to import 78 more items
New Delhi: Pakistan has decided to import an additional 78 items from India. This will take up the total number of items imported from the country to 678. The commerce ministry of India, however, claims that it has no idea about what the products are since Pakistan has taken the decision suo moto without consulting it. Commerce ministry officials said that although it had learnt from sources that Pakistan had increased the number of items in its free list of imports from India, it had received no official intimation. Interestingly, sources from the external ministry said that they had been informed by Pakistan of the expansion in the positive list. But no consultations on items to be included in the list took place.

Sources said that the expanded list does not include the products which India showed particular interest in. "It is a decision which Pakistan has taken on its own. Therefore not much can be said on it," officials said. Although, India had given Pakistan the most favoured nation (MFN) status way back in 1996, Pakistan is yet to reciprocate. Pakistan allows import of just 600 items from India to which it has now added 78 items. India, on the other hand, allows import of all items from Pakistan except for a small negative list of sensitive items which it does not import from any country. Despite this, India’s exports to Pakistan is more than four times its imports. In 2002-03, India imported goods worth Rs 255.13 crore from Pakistan while its exports to the country stood at Rs 997.73 crore.
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EC decision on CVD on Indian bedlinen likely on Monday
New Delhi: The European Commission has scheduled a meeting in Brussels on Monday to decide on whether or not to impose countervailing duty (CVD) on Indian bedlinen imports. The meeting is significant as it comes after New Delhi had demolished EU’s charge of injury to the domestic industry due to these imports during bilateral and industry level meetings in Brussels on October 30 and 31, said industry sources.

Brussels has recently notified CVD in bedlinen imports ranging from 4.4 per cent to 12.2 per cent in order to prevent further injury to the European industry. Earlier, Brussels had lost the case in the World Trade Organisation (WTO) appellate body against imposition of definitive anti-dumping duty on bedlinen. Following the body’s ruling, the EU revoked the duty that remained suspended from August 7, 2001 and also terminated the partial interim review as well as the unset review of the measure last month.

In the present case, the EU, textiles ministry officials said, had taken into account the subsidy margins and the amount of CVD necessary to eliminate the injury sustained by the European producers. Last year, the EU had imposed anti-dumping/anti-subsidy duty on polyester staple fibre (PSF) and polyester texturised filament yarn (PTY). In the case of PSF, a price undertaking had been given by one of the leading manufacturers. The Silk Rayon Textile Export Promotion Council had therefore given up its move to pursue the case in the WTO.
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