Page 508 - MANUAL OF SOP

Safeguard Investigations

21.8 Section 8B requires that the surge in imports should cause or threaten to
cause serious injury to domestic industry. The criteria for import relief under section
8B are based on the provisions in Article XIX of the GATT. This provision is sometimes
referred to as the escape clause because it permits a country to “escape” temporarily
from its obligations under the GATT with respect to a particular product, when
increased imports of that product are causing or are threatening to cause serious
injury to domestic producers.

21.9 The guiding principles of the Agreement with respect to safeguard measures
are as follows:

(i) Such measures must be temporary;
(ii) They may be imposed only when surge in imports are found to cause or
threaten to cause serious injury to a competing domestic industry;
(iii) They (generally) be applied on non-discriminatory basis and applied to all
imports irrespective of its source;
(iv) They are progressively liberalized while in effect.

21.10 Thus, safeguard measures, unlike anti-dumping and countervailing
measures, do not require a finding of an “unfair” practice (generally) and must be
applied on MFN basis.

OPERATING PRACTICE

Pre-Initiation
21.11 An application for initiation of a safeguard investigation can be made by
any aggrieved producer/manufacturer, trade body, firm or institution in India,
which is representative of domestic industry, in the prescribed application format.
The application should be accompanied with complete information duly signed and
certified.

21.12 Imports data must be obtained from DGCI&S.

21.13 The details submitted by the Industry regarding production and the alleged
injury should be examined by the investigation team.

21.14 The investigation requires determination of cost of production to examine
injury parameters and for this a reasonable return, which is a percentage of cost of
production, on case to case basis.

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