Ankara urges revision in soda ash duties

Questions NTC anti-dumping methodology to determine injury margin

ISLAMABAD:

During Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif's current visit, Turkiye's Ministry of Trade has raised significant concerns regarding the methodology used by Pakistan's National Tariff Commission (NTC) to determine the injury margin in its anti-dumping investigation of soda ash imports from Turkiye and Kenya.

NTC's deviation from its past practice amounts to providing undue protection to an industry producing intermediary goods, which are consumable by the downstream industry, to the disadvantage of downstream industries producing high value-added finished products. Turkish authorities are not only unhappy with the NTC's existing procedure, but have also asked their Pakistani counterparts to reconsider the method used for investigation of the said issue.

Sources told The Express Tribune that there were apprehensions that Turkiye's Ministry of Trade may take up the matter with the Pakistani delegation on a priority basis. In an official letter on July 2, 2026, addressed to the NTC, Turkiye's Directorate General for Imports argued that the commission had applied a 10% profit margin while calculating the non-injurious price for the domestic industry in its preliminary determination, instead of the 5% profit margin used in previous anti-dumping investigations.

The Turkish authorities maintained that the use of the 10% profit margin lacks consistency with the NTC's established practice and results in an inflated injury margin. They urged the commission to revise the calculation by applying a 5% profit margin in line with its previous determinations. Pakistan initiated the anti-dumping investigation into imports of soda ash from Turkiye and Kenya on July 18, 2025, and issued its preliminary determination, including provisional anti-dumping duties, on January 15, 2026. The Turkish side requested the NTC to take its comments into account before reaching a final determination in the case.

Recently, the embassy of Turkiye has urged the National Tariff Commission to ensure a fair and objective evaluation in the anti-dumping investigation into imports of disodium carbonate (soda ash) from Turkiye and Kenya. In a letter addressed to the NTC chairman, the embassy's Office of the Commercial Counsellor said the Turkish government had already submitted its official views, assessments and responses to the allegations made by Pakistani petitioners, along with replies provided by Turkish exporting companies to the NTC questionnaire.

Through another letter, International Silicate (Private) Limited has formally requested the National Tariff Commission chairman to order an independent investigation into what it describes as a serious conflict of interest and administrative bias in the ongoing anti-dumping investigation concerning imports of soda ash. In the letter dated July 2, 2026, the company further claimed that the preliminary determination contains biased calculations and warned that imposing anti-dumping duties could significantly increase raw material costs for downstream industries, potentially leading to factory closures, job losses, and wider economic consequences.