Taiwan mulls anti-dumping duty on Morbi ceramics

Rajkot: Trouble seems far from over for the ceramic manufacturers of Morbi after the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) imposed anti-dumping duty in June this year.

Now, the Taiwan government has initiated the process of imposing duty on ceramic imports from four countries, including India, following allegations by local manufacturers there. The other countries are Vietnam, Malaysia and Indonesia. Together these four countries account for 70% of ceramic imports to Taiwan.

Though Morbi’s exports to Taiwan is around Rs 300 crore of the total annual export basket of Rs 12,000 crore, the manufactures are worried about more countries following the trend .

Nilesh Jetpariya, president of Morbi Ceramic Association (wall tiles division), said after GCC imposed duty ranging from 40% to 106% on Indian ceramic products, the export to the Gulf countries has dropped by 20%.

“We export 500 containers per month to Taiwan, which is a very small quantity compared to the total exports. However, we can’t ignore this investigation by the Taiwanese authority,” Jetpariya said.

The ceramic industry came to know about investigation initiated by the ministry of finance of Taiwan last week through a public letter stating that three Taiwanese companies along with Taiwan Ceramic Industry Association have sought anti-dumping duty on ceramics from four countries.

The Taiwanese firms raised objections regarding pricing by 34 ceramic exporters of Morbi. The companies had appointed a local market research company and based on 2019 production of top ten ceramic companies and other data they claimed that dumping margin was 80%.

Mukesh Ughareja president of of association’s (vitrified tiles division) said “We don’t want more countries to impose anti-dumping duty on our products. It impacts our credit in the international market.”