WTO supports fair competition, removes barriers in world trade

Muscat: The World Trade Organisation (WTO), with its rules and regulations, makes world trade free from customs and other tariff barriers imposed by countries to block free movement of goods through international outlets. It opens markets of the countries more broadly to allow fair competition in world trade and pushing of commodities in the market for the consumer in a diversified manner.
Badr bin Mubarak Al-Hajri, Head of the Anti-Dumping Department at the Ministry of Commerce and Industry said, "The trade competition has intensified among the industrialised countries for world trade. This is due to their multiple and diverse type of industries and high level of production capacities. They push whatever is the surplus to the international market in larger quantities through various means and using their policies of international trade. This has led many types of differences among countries."
Al-Hajri said, "Among the most prominent of these differences is the competition policy which is harmful to international trade. They are of three types, practice of dumping, subsidy, and increase in imports. When a country supplies its products in markets at prices lower than the normal price, it harms manufacturers of the importing countries. This is called dumping. As for the subsidy, the goods are considered subsidised when they receive a special direct or indirect financial support by the government of the country of origin or from any public organisation. As a result of this, the recipient of the subsidy, whether they are producers or exporters, they get benefit. The policy of increased imports leads to sudden increase in the imports which is more than the domestic production due to unexpected developments. This causes serious damage to the domestic industry."
The most common competition policy among the three practices in the world of trade is dumping policy. This policy is practiced in pursuit of acquiring the largest share of sales in the importing country’s market. It is by hiding behind extremely low and competitive price cover. This happens for a short period, then the price starts going up when such companies realise that now there is no more any local competitor left, he said. Al-Harjri further added that the biggest threat known in the economic world is that such practices makes the manufacturing countries, dependent primarily on the imports of goods to meet the demand of the market. This happens due to the decline in their own industry and their inability to compete with the subsidised and dumped imported goods.
Badr Al-Hajri said that one of the policies which support the spread of dumping practice was the interference of some of the countries in the interest of their own industries. They reduce the value of their currencies against strong currencies to be of lesser value than the value of the currency of the countries importing the product. This is controlled if national investigative authorities (the agencies responsible for countries to combat harmful practices of international trade) take a series of procedures and actions and analyse according to the WTO rules. This is required to prove with evidences that the dumping practice was going on and it was adversely affecting the fair trade. According to it the margin of dumping and damage is determined to impose deterrent customs duties to get rid of this practice in the importer's market.