"The worst impact of anti-dumping duty will be felt by CtCP and violet plates"

Ranesh Bajaj, director marketing, Creed Engineers speaks to Samir Lukka

05 Apr 2012 | By Samir Lukka

Do you agree to the preliminary findings? What are the points you disagree to?
We do not agree to the findings as they have ignored all the requests of the Indian printers. A detailed presentation must be made to the authorities on the 10th of April.

Your perspective / take on this whole scenario of anti-dumping duty?
These are the efforts of a "monopoly" to further their business interests at the cost of the Indian print community. The very fact that domestic manufacturer is a monopoly, already protected by a 27% import duty, not having to pay any safeguard duty on aluminum any more, but still insisting on pushing this anti-dumping duty will be a severe blow to the competitiveness of the Indian print industry.

Will the preliminary findings, if implemented, affect your business?
We are the latest and the smallest players in this segment and hence will not affect us significantly. In fact some plate importers may stand to gain as well since the market price will go up and even if the same percentage of margin is maintained, net amount of earnings will rise.

What impact will it have on the Indian print industry?
Calculations show that an average print company using between 3,000 to 7,000 sq/mtrs of plates per month stands to loose between 21 lakhs to Rs 70 lakhs per annum if this duty is levied. Organisations like Printweek India need to calculate the overall impact on the industry in national terms based on the consumption data that they have.

Will the preliminary findings, if implemented, affect the pricing of plates (both domestic and imported) in any way?
Yes. As mentioned above, the worst impacted will be the CtCP and the violet plates (which will affect newspapers as well). The printer will be at the mercy of the monopolistic domestic manufacturer at the price they demand or the higher price that will be applicable on imports.

Any specific point / points you would want to add?
Some key printing associations have been very silent on these issues knowing fully well that this will hurt the printers really bad. The media should investigate the reason for the associations being silent. Is it because of the key persons in power selling out to vested interests ignoring the fate of the industry overall? It is like politicians putting personal gains over the fate of the nation.

Perhaps, the question should be posed to the government as well to see if the basic anti-dumping rules need to be re-looked at in case the domestic industry is controlled by a monopoly. Policy loopholes should not be open for exploitation for personal gains over interest of a nation or an industry.