INDIA'S OIL WAR

Evening Post, Volume CVI, Issue 55, 13 September 1928, Page 11

INDIA'S OIL WAR

♦> OPERATIONS OF POOL TARIFF BOARD'S REPORT British Official Wireless. RUGBY, 12th Sept. The India Office has issued a statement regarding the report of the Indian Tariff Board on the oil industry. The statement says that the Tariff Board was directed to investigate the question of safeguarding the oil industry in India from injury inflicted by the saie of imported kerosene at prices below world pnrity. The majority of the board finds that sale at prices below world parity has • been established. Dumping, too, has been established not by the companies against which the complaint was made, but by groups working in close alliance with the principal Indian producers. It was disclosed also at the inquiry that the Burma Oil Company had undertaken to make good to other Indian members of the pool the remainder of their losses us measured by the difference between Indian and Chinese prices. In the face of these agreements it would have been impossible for the Government of India to consider the grant of public assistance to companies which are members of the pool. As the price war has now ended, it is unnecessary to arrive at a conclusion on the question whether other companies should be safeguarded, but the Government of India sees no reason for rejecting the considered opinion of tho board that no case has been made out for safeguarding any company. The Government of India accepts the finding of the board that petrol is not likely to be imported into India on a considerable scale for tho next two years, and no action is called for.