Indonesia has imposed anti-dumping duty on import of HR Coils from China, India, Russia and Ukraine. Similarly, Ispat Industries are facing dumping cases in Colombia. Canada has initiated anti-dumping actions in the case of import of plates from 16 countries. The list goes on and on. What is interesting is the haste in which such decisions are taken, therate of the duties -- over 200 per cent -- and the way the cases are handled. All these make it difficult to accept that these are actions only against unethical business practices and not hard-core protective measures for their industries.

The EC has slapped quotas on the import of steel from the CIS to EU. The quotas are stringent for items which threaten the European producers directly.

They have agreed to increase the quotas gradually and eliminate the same by 2001 provided the CIS producers adopt methods that will increase the cost of production of their steel. The settlement, it seems, is acceptable to the concerned parties because "it will eliminate the threat of a legal battle between the EU, Russia and Ukraine, such as taking place in the USA where Russia and Ukraine are facing anti-dumping actions". The message from Europe is very clear.

Either accept quotas or face expensive anti-dumping cases including minimum entry price restrictions.

What is evident in such actions is that anti-dumpingproceedings are no longer seen as measures against unfair trading alone but as means to protect domestic industries from cheaper imports. As a result of this, the concept of dumping and the institutional arrangement for anti-dumping actions, which were more related to business ethics, came to be just another form of protection in the developed countries. This new language of protection seems to be the latest and smartest strategy many countries have adopted to protect their crises-ridden industries -- more so in the developed countries. After having brought down the tariff barriers significantly, the developed countries are finding their position substantially weakened in the face of stiff competition from the developing countries. The developing countries with the advantages of rapidly growing home markets, cost competitiveness and increased access to modern technology came to be better placed in the global market in many areas and take advantage of the more open markets in the developed countries. The richindustrial nations, already burdened with excess industrial capacities found their woes compounded as they started losing markets in the developing countries. This was the time when they started pressing for free trade. But worse was the loss of their home markets to the same players subsequently. Then came `dumping', `subsidies' and other tools to protect their industries from low cost production in the developing countries.

The new instruments did not really work up to expectation as it was becoming difficult to establish unethical trade practices in the classical framework of dumping.