Trade Arabia reported that the petrochemicals and chemicals industry in the Gulf has registered a strong protest against a move by India to apply antidumping duties on polypropylene exports from Oman and Saudi Arabia.

Gulf Petrochemicals and Chemicals Association citing a Disclosure Report issued by India recently, said that the government had decided to apply antidumping measures against polypropylene exports from two gulf countries Oman and Saudi.

Dr Abdulwahab Al Sadoun secretary general of the Gulf Petrochemicals and Chemicals Association said that “This decision is not justified as GCC companies are neither dumping products in India nor causing injury to the country's petrochemical industry. The Indian authorities had decided to take the unprecedented approach of rejecting the local price of feedstock used to manufacture polypropylene since the price when sold in Saudi is considerably lower than the price available in India.”

Mr Sadoun explained that for obvious commercial reasons, including proximity to the source and low local production and distribution costs, the price of feedstock in Saudi Arabia, as in the Gulf region generally was more competitive than in countries like India.

He pointed out that the methodology applied by India would clearly not stand up to scrutiny under WTO rules. WTO rules do not allow India to use anti-dumping measures to protect its industry from fair trade from competitive producers in the Gulf region that are not dumping their products and are not injuring the Indian industry.

Mr Sadoun said that he was surprised by the Indian government's move 'given its desire to improve economic ties with Gulf countries and considering the massive investments and employment of Indian nationals in the region. The GPCA chief called upon the Indian Government to reconsider the decision before it affected economic relations with the Gulf region.

He said that with this move, there is a concern that many aspects of business and trade between the GCC and India will be impacted. Meanwhile, the association will hold consultations with regional governments and seek their support.