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Abstract

The market-economy determination of any country by another WTO Member is highly political as well as economic in nature. The Designated Authority in India, who is responsible for conducting trade remedial investigations in accordance with the WTO law is faced with a quandary of whether to continue treating Vietnam as a market economy, even when it does not satisfy all the tests required as per the domestic legislations to show the existence of market forces. This comment thereby tries to analyse how and why the Designated Authority has abandoned its duty of carrying out a detailed examination of the non-market economies, and whether the MOU between Indian and Vietnam has any role to play in the authority’s failure to adequately scrutinise the market forces present in Viet Nam. The authors briefly discuss all the past findings in the Indian anti-dumping and anti-subsidy investigations from 2009 until 2020 with Vietnam as one of the subject countries to establish the unmethodical pattern of determining market economy, and finally, summarise their apprehension by concluding that the MOU signed between India and Vietnam might continue to impact a fair sectoral analysis requisite in investigating the existence of a particular market situation even in the future investigations.

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