US moves with hefty duties on India and China - it may be the beginning!
Kiran Chaube, Special Correspondent
December 11, 2004 

US today put hefty levies on certain items from India and China. Sources say this may the start of a series of levies on these countries. And it may be followed with quotas on BPO and other outsourcing services. Recent exit of General Electric Corporation from Indian outsourcing sector rings the alarm right away. GE was the first US corporation to start outsourcing from India. GE last month sold the business for $1 Billion.

A U.S. trade panel gave final approval on Friday to steep duties on imports of an industrial color additive from China and India that is used in paints, plastics and printing ink. The U.S. International Trade Commission, by a vote of 6-0, said low-priced imports of various forms of Carbazole Violet Pigment 23 were harming domestic producers. The action clears the way for the Commerce Department to impose anti-dumping duties ranging from 5.51 to 217.94 percent on imports of the product from China to offset prices it says are below fair market value. It plans to impose anti-dumping and countervailing duties on imports from India to offset unfair pricing and government subsidies. Those duties will range from 27.23 to 69.23 percent and from 17.33 to 33.61 percent, respectively. The case was brought last year by Sun Chemical Corp. of Cincinnati, and Nation Ford Chemical Co. of Fort Mills, South Carolina. Sun is a wholly owned subsidiary of Dainippon Ink and Chemical, which is based in Tokyo. Sun Chemical produces more than half of all the Violet 23 manufactured in the United States. Nation Ford Chemical is the only domestic producer of the crude form of the pigment and supplies all its production to Sun, according to documents filed by the companies. Imports of Violet 23 from China more than doubled between 2001 and 2003 to 336,350 kg, while prices drooped. Imports from India fell by 43 percent in 2003 from a peak of 27,823 kg in 2002.