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India drops Saudi Arabia from anti-dumping probe

April 7, 2020 at 2:58 pm

A shareholder sits beside a Reliance Industries Limited poster during the company’s annual general meeting in Mumbai, on June 7, 2012. [INDRANIL MUKHERJEE/AFP/Getty Images]

India has dropped Saudi Arabia from an investigation into the dumping of chemical products into the Indian market but will continue its probe into the UAE, Kuwait and Oman. The latter three are the other Middle East subjects of the inquiry.

The probe follows a petition from one of India’s largest companies, Reliance Industries Limited (RIL), to assess the extent of damage dealt to the domestic industry because of mono-ethylene glycol dumped by the Gulf States. Four months after urging the Indian government to carry out an investigation, RIL requested yesterday the termination of the probe into Saudi Arabia.

“The investigation shall continue against the imports of subject goods originating in or exported from Kuwait, Oman, the UAE and Singapore in accordance with the public notice issued on 9 December 2019,” said the amended anti-dumping investigation report.

The order did not explain why Reliance had sought the termination of the investigation into Saudi Arabia, although Indian regulations are said to allow it after a written request from the affected domestic industry.

READ: Saudi, the UAE and India agree on huge oil project despite protests

It’s been speculated, though, that the $15 billion August 2019 deal between Saudi Arabia’s state-owned oil giant Aramco and RIL may explain why the Saudis were dropped from the probe. All the countries subjected to the investigation were approached by the billionaire owners of Reliance to strike an import-export deal.

Riyadh purchased a 20 per cent stake in RIL’s oil-to-chemicals business as part of a wider plan to double its processing network to handle as much as 10 million barrels a day by 2030. The Indian conglomerate agreed to a long-term purchase of 500,000 barrels of crude a day from Aramco.

The same period also marked the extension of the partnership between Saudi Arabia and India. In 2017, Aramco opened an Indian subsidiary to regain some of the market share it had lost over the years to competitors around the world.