Ukrainian producers will protect themselves from competitors

Cabinet of the Ministers of Ukraine submitted to the Verkhovna Rada three bills that protect Ukrainian producers from competitors who are dumping with their goods.

This is reported by ubr.ua.

If they are accepted, the Ministry of Economic Development and Trade (MEDT) will be able to independently initiate anti-dumping investigations, even if they have not received official appeals from our enterprises.

If there is sufficient evidence of the existence of dumping for any product category, the ministry may recommend to the Interdepartmental Commission on International Trade to initiate an appropriate investigation.

So, it is sufficient to prove the existence of harm to one of the Ukrainian industries or national interests, as well as to substantiate the causal relationship between dumping and damage.

"There is no provision in the current law on the protection of a national producer from dumping imports that the MEDT can initiate an anti-dumping investigation," says Bargen Law Firm partner Sviatoslav Bartosh.

According to the lawyer, such a provision is contained in the Agreement on the application of Article VI of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade 1994 (GATT-94). However, if the Ukrainian legislation does not explicitly provide for the authority of the ministry to initiate such an investigation, it cannot do so.

This innovation demonstrates the main idea of changing almost the entire legislative field in the area of protection of the Ukrainian market from excessively cheap imports - bringing it in line with international standards of the GATT. Now it will be explicitly stated in the preamble of each law.

"Probably, the number of improvements was subsequently so great that they decided to write a new law, but with the preservation of key standards, for example, determining the share of "minor imports" or “minimum dumping margin” says Bartosh.

The government bill No. 8104 proposes to adopt a new version of the law on protection from dumping, that is, when dishonest exporters knowingly sell their goods in Ukraine at understated prices.

The second bill No. 8103 rewrites the norms of the legislation on the protection of the national producer from subsidized imports - when the exporting country supports its producers with unjustified subsidies.

The draft law No. 8102 deals with cases when, due to unforeseen circumstances, the volume of imports of some products suddenly increases, and this can damage national interests. For example, increase unemployment in the country. Then the state can introduce protective measures justifying their applications.