- NEW DELHI — The government has set up a taskforce to keep a close watch on
attempts by other countries to dump goods at predatory prices to exploit the
Indian market, following the hike in tariffs announced by the Donald Trump
administration which makes it difficult to export to the US, a top government official
said on Wednesday.
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- “A new world order is developing with tariffs and
retaliatory tariffs announced almost in real-time. Exports to the US may be
re-directed towards us, so we need to be vigilant against dumping and predatory
pricing which may happen in the next few months. A task force under the
Ministry of Commerce had been set-up to closely monitor the situation,” said
Deepak Mishra, Joint Secretary, Petrochemicals, Department of Chemicals and
Petrochemicals.
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- Addressing the 'India Speciality Chemicals Conclave'
organised here by Assocham, Mishra also said that India’s chemicals sector “may
benefit from this development.”
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- “We are working to develop a Registration, Evaluation,
Authorization and Restriction of Chemicals (REACH) framework for India. Once
this is in place, products can be branded accordingly in conformity to
international environmental norms and quality controls," he explained.
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- Mishra pointed out that research and development is
crucial for the speciality chemicals business as it is more of a
knowledge-centric business.
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- “The industry must work together with academia to enhance
capabilities for research. We have a great ecosystem of research labs in the
country consisting of both government and private laboratories that are doing
good work.” he added.
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- Kapil Malhotra, Co-Chairman, Assocham National Council on
Chemicals and Petrochemicals said, “As a the dust from the US Tariffs begins to
settle, the chemicals sector has seen a surge in activities with enquiries
coming in from across the globe".
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- "Enquiries for specialty chemicals have also been
coming in from China as they a majorly into bulk chemicals. Upstream and
downstream MSME players can play a key role in expanding the Chemicals sector.
If we channelise our energies with downstream units we can grow at a much
faster rate than our current growth," Malhotra added.
