Panel formed to probe foreign goods dumping

The Bangladesh Trade and Tariff Commission (BTTC) has formed a nine-member panel to investigate complaints of distortionary trade practices, including the dumping of foreign goods into Bangladesh’s market at artificially low prices.

The committee, headed by the commission’s Trade Remedy Division Member Md Enamul Hoque, will also recommend measures to protect domestic industries from injury caused by such practices, according to an office order issued earlier this month.

It will additionally oversee post-adoption legal disputes, including reviewing appeals filed with the World Trade Organisation, and issuing trade-related notices to market stakeholders. The move comes as several Bangladeshi products already face anti-dumping duties abroad. Jute and jute products, hydrogen peroxide, artificial staple fibre, and knitted textile gloves exported from Bangladesh are subject to such duties in Brazil, Pakistan, India, Turkey and Argentina.

It also comes at a critical juncture domestically. Despite having a broadly WTO-aligned legal framework under the Customs Act 2023, Bangladesh has rarely used anti-dumping measures, countervailing duties or safeguard instruments to shield local industries — a gap documented in a Bangladesh Foreign Trade Institute (BFTI) study on trade remedy constraints.

That gap is set to become more consequential as Bangladesh is scheduled to graduate from least-developed country status. Following the graduation, the country is expected to lose significant policy space to deploy instruments such as regulatory duties, supplementary duties and minimum tariff values that have traditionally protected domestic producers.

Import tariffs on various products will also decline as the country fulfils obligations under bilateral and multilateral trade agreements, a BTTC official said.

The transition is expected to expose local industries to intensified competition, including dumping, subsidised imports and sudden import surges, the BFTI paper warned.

Latest developments on the external front add urgency to the committee’s formation. India’s Directorate General of Trade Remedies last week released findings from its mid-term review of anti-dumping duties on jute goods from Bangladesh and Nepal, concluding that Bangladeshi exporters continued to dump jute products and cause injury to India’s domestic industry.

Indian authorities are expected to recommend the continuation of anti-dumping duties on Bangladesh’s jute products despite a decline in overall shipments in recent years, raising concerns among local millers.