Arab News -

(MENAFN - Arab News) The lecture was hosted by Abdulwahab Muhammed Al-Fayez, editor in chief of Al-Eqtisadiah, a sister publication of Arab News. The lecture primarily focused on the GCC-India strategic partnership and New Delhi's stake in the region. After Ahmad's talk, which was rich in content with factual details and statistics, the issue of anti-dumping was raised by Fawaz Al-Alamy, consultant and former deputy minister for commerce and industry; Abdulwahab Al-Sadoun, secretary general of the Dubai-based Gulf Petrochemicals & Chemicals Association (GPCA); and Abdulrahman Abdullah Al-Zamil, chairman of Zamil Group. They demanded the Indian side to make it a priority issue and solve the problem as early as possible. Al-Sadoun and Al-Zamil said the decision of the Indian government was not justified.

India has imposed definitive anti-dumping duty on polypropylene imports from Saudi Arabia, Oman and Singapore. This duty will be valid for a period of five years from July 30, 2009, the date of imposition of provisional anti-dumping duty.

Replying to the questions related to anti-dumping after his lecture on "India's strategic relationship with the Gulf states and Saudi Arabia," the ambassador played down the issue and briefed them about the new developments in the context of bilateral relationship and in the light of the regulatory provisions of the WTO. He said that this is "a small issue" and such problems would occur since the business ties between Riyadh and New Delhi are growing rapidly and substantially in all sectors.

A number of top Gulf and Saudi officials including Saad A. Alammar, GCC assistant secretary general for political affairs; Saleh A. Al-Mani, professor of law and political science at King Saud University (KSU); Talat Zaki Hafiz, secretary general of Saudi Banks; Abdullah Alshamri, adviser at the Ministry of Culture & Information, and Saud Abid, an expert at the Riyadh-based Naif Arab University for Security Sciences (NAUSS), attended the event.