India leads tally of anti-dumping cases: WTO

India topped the table of the countries resorting to anti-dumping investigations between July and December 2008, while Brazil, China and Argentina were other major users of the WTO-compliant trade remedy to protect their domestic industries against cheap imports.

Of the total 120 new anti-dumping investigations in the second-half of calendar 2008, India accounted for 42 cases, a report on the trade policy reviews by the World Trade Organisation has said.

With the global trade volume expected to contract nine per cent in 2009, countries are likely to resort to increased level of protection of their domestic markets in the midst of recession in world's major economies.

"The increase in initiations of anti-dumping investigations looks set to continue in 2009. . . ," WTO Director General Pascal Lamy said.

The second-half saw more anti-dumping initiatives than the January-June period of 2008, the report found. The world economies came under increased recessionary pressures since September last.

The number of investigations increased by 27 per cent to 207 in 2008.