India protests against Turkish yarn duty

According to the WTO website, the Indian government

has lodged a trade complaint with the World Trade Organisation (WTO) against extension of Turkey’s safeguard measure on imports of cotton yarn from India. Turkey had earlier imposed the safeguard duty in 2008 for a period of three years, but extended it provisionally in July 2011, with the intention of conducting a sunset review and finally re-imposed the duty. In the sunset review, although Turkey has removed the duty on cotton yarn imports from a few countries, who export cotton yarn in small quantities, it has been re-imposed on Indian cotton yarn imports.

In 2009, due to the imposition of safeguard duty, imports tariffs on cotton yarn surged to 15-20 per cent instead of the 5 per cent that was imposed earlier. India has put forth an argument that Turkey cannot re-impose the safeguard duty, once it has expired. In its trade complaint put before the WTO, India has requested for a consultation with Turkey on the issue before filing a full-fledged legal complaint at the WTO.

In a bid to protect the domestic textile industry, Turkey had imposed the safeguard in 2008, following a surge in cotton yarn imports beginning from 2005.