Trade Diversion Effects of Anti-dumping Duties in Selected ASEAN Countries

The use of anti-dumping measures by non-traditional users, such as India, Brazil, and Argentina, have increased over the past 20 years. This situation is also applicable to six of the ten ASEAN members as well, namely Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam, who are beginning to play a larger role in the world economy. This paper shows that most of these six members established legislation on anti-dumping in the mid-1990s, and ever since, their use of the mechanism has become increasingly frequent. This study conducted an empirical analysis on whether imports to ASEAN countries has been diverted from named countries to non-named countries during the 10-year span from 2000 to 2010, and its possible effects. The analysis done on the 111 cases suggest the possibility of trade diversion. Moreover, the results show strong evidence for trade depression overall for imports both from named and non-named countries due to imposing of duties on named countries.