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Tariff protection in Bangladesh has helped shield domestic industries, supporting industrialization, job creation, and enabling diversification, particularly through protection for import-substitute sectors and infant industries[1] . However, some sectors of Bangladesh are vulnerable to substantial injury due to dumping and significantly lower price driven by subsidy provided by the exporting countries’ governments. In such cases, trade remedies—such as safeguards and anti-dumping— could be used to provide a transitional buffer while ensuring long-term competitiveness[2] . But the country is yet to adopt the World Trade Organization (WTO) recognized trade safeguards like anti-dumping and countervailing duties. Challenges like limited technical skills, low industry awareness, and bureaucratic obstacles engendered this non-adoption. In Bangladesh, there is a practice of reliance on customs duty, supplementary duty, and regulatory duty to protect domestic industries. Such protections do not necessarily address dumping since dumping is an exporter’s pricing practice. This higher tariff works as a protective measure for domestic manufacturers who often propose for raising duties on their competing products than imposing Anti-Dumping Duty (ADD) or Countervailing Duty (CVD) and restrain from filing allegations on dumping. In absence of dumping allegations, the concerned authority, Bangladesh Trade and Tariff Commission (BTTC) cannot take effective initiatives in this connection.
Dumping happens when a company sells its products in another country for less than its production cost or less than the price in its home country, harming local producers (of the importing country) with cheap imports. Countervailing is a policy that countries use to counter foreign government’s subsidies that negatively impact local producers, often by imposing duties[3] .
India accounts for approximately 17% of global anti-dumping filings. Besides India, United States, European Union(EU), Brazil, Argentina, Australia and Canada are the top initiators of the anti-dumping filings which are mainly targeted against China (by far), South Korea, Thailand, Indonesia, Japan and Russia. On the other hand, the United States is responsible for about half of all countervailing duty measures globally between 1995 and 2020 (CRS, 2021). European Union(EU), Canada and Australia have become the major users of countervailing duty measures that commonly levies the duty to counter the subsidies on imported products from China and India. The following figures exhibit the number of times the Anti-Dumping (AD) and Countervailing Duty(CVD) have been used by the major users from 2020 to 2024. It has been observed that USA, India (only SAARC country), China, Brazil and European Union(EU) are the major users of Anti-Dumping Duty(ADD) while USA and European Union(EU) are the single major user of Countervailing Duty(CVD) in the mentioned period.
From a comparison of trade remedy frameworks among India, China and Malaysia it has been observed that Malaysia requires the least amount of duration to file a case on dumping which is 120-180 days. India uses economic indicators for analyzing the injury and causal link to levy ADD while Malaysia uses the threat of injury for the same. In order to consider the base of ADD India compares between the margin of dumping and injury margin and imposes duty on the lesser one. For the CVD basis Bangladesh measures the amount of subsidy while India measures the extent of subsidy and Malaysia measures the extent of government subsidy.
Bangladesh’s Import Statistics
The import statistics show that the Bangladesh's common imports include: Food Grains, Milk and cream, Spices, Oil seeds, Edible oil, pulses, Sugar, Clinker, Crude petroleum, Chemical, Pharmaceutical products, Fertilizer, Dyeing and tanning materials, Plastics and rubber articles, Raw cotton, Yarn, Textile articles, Staple fiber, base metals and Capital machinery. A careful analysis of the top importable products of Bangladesh, reveals a heavy reliance on major suppliers like China and India. The following figures show the trend of import of Bangladesh in price:
Potential Products for ADD in Bangladesh
A recent study conducted by Bangladesh Foreign Trade Institute(BFTI), (Rashid et al., 2025) analysed trade data from the International Trade Centre (ITC) trade map to compare the unit prices of products exported worldwide with those of products exported to Bangladesh. It identified 172 products which are sold to Bangladesh with a lower price than the global market price. Industry insiders and Associations identified that out of the 172 products a total of 15 products (at 6 digits HS Codes level) where ADD may be applied. It may be mentioned that ADD are imposed if 25% businesses from a specific domestic industry supports it. Therefore, the 15 products enlisted in the following table may be further investigated by Bangladesh Trade and Tariff Commission(BTTC) and consulted with business organizations for levying ADD:
