Industry accuses BTT of foot-dragging on anti-dumping

Leonard Neill
LOCAL INDUSTRY has fired a broadside at the Board of Tariffs and Trade (BTT) over its alleged failure to complete a number of major investigations into the dumping of goods in this country.
The BTT recently called off investigations into alleged dumping of wooden doors from Indonesia and Malaysia.
A recent complaint comes from Mondi Paper where general manager John Barton says his group is awaiting the outcome of two enquiries, one of which has been pending for the past four years.
"BTT is hurting the South African paper industry by failing to complete investigations into dumping on the local market in good time," he says, pointing to the agreement on the implementation of article six of the 1944 General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), which stipulates that anti-dumping investigations should be finalised within a year or, in exceptional cases, 18 months.
Mondi's first claim centred around the alleged dumping of carton board from Austria, the Netherlands, Spain and Germany, while the second relates to carbonous paper from Belgium, the UK and Germany. The latter application, says Barton, was submitted more than a year ago.
BTT's investigation into the wooden doors allegation was terminated following a high court application by a South African company, Interwil to speed up the investigation.
This fact was published in the Government Gazette of last Friday
in which the SA Revenue Services
had also agreed to withdraw provisional anti-dumping duty imposed
on the doors involved. The high court application followed a petition by Doorcraft SA, supported by two other South African manufacturing companies, Solid Doors and TDM. According to the Government Gazette notice Interwil agreed to settle the matter on the basis that each party should pay its own costs.
According to the board's acting
chairman Alwyn Kraamwinkel BTT
is struggling to maintain its policy
of completing investigations within
six months because of a heavy work burden.