Alan Peat SOUTH AFRICAN muscle in international anti-dumping cases is somewhat compromised by the fact that it has not introduced its own regulations. “This,” said Riaan de Lange, manager of the PricewaterhouseCoopers’ customs and international trade (CIT) consultancy, and talking about cases like the current Hulett’s Aluminium/Alcoa battle, “is where South Africa has to be very careful.” There is an anti-dumping agreement created by the World Trade Organisation (WTO) for all its members. “But, while the US has had trade remedy regulations in place for a number of years, SA - although it published draft anti-dumping regulations earlier this year - has not yet implemented them.” “SA is still awaiting the publication of draft countervailing and safeguards regulations.” So tactically, De Lange suggested: “We must be careful when we call on a new trade remedy agreement, when we don’t even have regulations of our own.” His grouse is that SA has been involved in anti-dumping since 1916. “But yet we have never had any trade remedy regulations enacted.” Dumping has to be accompanied by industry injury in the recipient state, or no action can be taken. So why is SA accused of causing injury to US industry? It’s an almost automatic progression, given the current economic situation, De Lange said. “The world economy is not growing so everybody is looking for new markets, and protecting their own with claws bared,” he added. What the US is doing, and SA is not, De Lange explained, is that they’re looking at imports coming in and if they feel there’s a suggestion of it being “unfair”, they take action. “In SA,” he said, “we tend to monitor the marketplace and if we see “unfair” products appearing on shop shelves, as it were, then we take action.” But that’s too late. “The US is pro-active, something SA companies should be.”
