The “Trade Remedies Advisory Cell” (TRAC) is set up at the Centre for Trade and Investment Law (under Ministry of Commerce and Industry, Government of India) with a vision to provide holistic support to the domestic industry in the preparation of applications, collating relevant information or data and providing legal advice for trade remedial investigations before anti-dumping and safeguard authorities of India.
The services provided by TRAC are free of cost. TRAC or any of its officials do NOT charge any fee for their pro-bono services to the domestic industry.
OUR SERVICES
Trade remedies are key tools available to countries for protecting their domestic industry against an injury or a threat of an injury that may be caused due to import of dumped products, subsidized products or sudden import-influx. These tools provide a protective mechanism to diminish the trade-disruptive or injury-inducing effects of such actions. While anti-dumping measures can be enforced against dumped products, countervailing duties are imposed on subsidized imports. The legal frameworks governing trade remedy processes and measures flow from the Agreements of the World Trade Organization (WTO). Due to the complex processes and administrative requirements of an anti-dumping, countervailing duty, safeguard or anti-circumvention investigation, the Cell provides three types of expertise to the domestic industry to ensure an all-inclusive assistance during trade remedy application and investigation processes:
- Legal Expertise
- Cost Accounting Expertise
- Economic Expertise
Legal Expertise
Trade remedial actions require analysis of complex legal and factual issues. Participation in the investigation process involves the preparation and submission of several documents at different stages of the investigation, replies to the submission by respondents, written submissions, rejoinders, hearings, etc. TRAC provides legal support to the domestic industry throughout the investigation, including applications for requesting initiation of a trade remedial investigation, preparation of documents, representations before the Designated Authority, etc.
Cost Accounting Expertise
Costing information and its analysis is a consequential area to secure any trade remedial measure available to the industry. TRAC assists the domestic industry in evaluating the quantum and order of injury inflicted. The Cell also assist in recording, organizing, analyzing, and reporting the relevant costing information and facts as per the regulatory requirements. The Cell also assists the domestic industry to familiarise itself with utilization of cost information.
Economic Expertise
The foremost challenge that any domestic industry stakeholder adjoins is ‘data-gaps’, i.e., the lack of information/data from the industry peers. TRAC assists in filling this void by conducting market research, data analysis, and statistical modelling to support the domestic industry’s petitions for trade remedies investigations.
The Cell assists the applicant with a variety of application proformas, and questionnaires during the application and investigation and fill-in data gaps such as estimates of normal values, evidence of dumping, evidence of injury, and a causal link to it. TRAC also assists the applicant to organize, analyze and present the crucial internal costing data required as evidence of dumping.
HOW DO WE ASSIST THE DOMESTIC INDUSTRY?
TRAC provides its legal, cost accounting, and economic services with an aim to ensure that the domestic industry avails the benefits of trade remedial measures without financial and legal implications.
Address & Contact Details:
Centre for Trade and Investment Law
(Ministry of Commerce and Industry, Government of India)
6th Floor, NAFED House, Siddhartha Enclave, Ring Road, Ashram Chowk, New Delhi – 110014
Phone No.: 011-38325612
Working Hours: 9:00 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. (Monday to Friday)
Email Address:
trac.ctil@iift.edu
(Kindly mention the area in which experts’ assistance is required in the subject line itself)