For background information, read PN's fresh report India probes allegation of China injection press dumping.

It's not the first trade dispute between the two of world's fastest-growing economies, but the anti-dumping investigation India's Ministry of Commerce is starting on Chinese injection presses is quite interesting and may have significant fall-out.

In the official notification, the Indian government not only mentioned the applicant L&T Demag Plastic Machinery Ltd. of Chennai, but also specifically noted that "there are three other companies which are known to have the capacities to produce the subject goods in India: Ferromatik Milacron India Ltd. of Ahmedabad, Windsor Machines Ltd. of Thane and Electronica Machine Tools Ltd. of Pune."

Maybe the government believed that these three companies -- all non-applicants -- are major domestic players in the field. But note the significant foreign ownership in these enterprises. L&T Demag and Ferromatik Milacron India are foreign-invested, and Windsor used to be foreign-invested. The only local company, Electronica, makes just 100 machines of its own per year, and imports 400 presses from China's Haitian Group.

Machinery industry sources said that the biggest Chinese brands sold in India appear to be Ningbo Haitian Group Ltd. of Ningbo; Zhejiang Sound Machinery Manufacture Co. Ltd. in Hangzhou, Zhejiang province; and Chen Hsong Group of Hong Kong.

At least two of the big three, Haitian and Sound, already have assembly facilities in India. So if penalties were imposed to whole presses, Haitian and Sound could ship parts to India and assemble machines locally. Other companies can certainly follow the suit.

Of course, jobs and investment will come with the assembly work from China to India. India wouldn't mind that.

The probe could also have an impact on Chinese participation in the big PlastIndia show, coming up Feb. 4-9, 2009, in New Delhi, according to an Indian source who talked to one of our reporters. And the two countries currently plan to organize an India-China Plastics Summit in conjunction with that show. This move could add a new dynamic to those proceedings.

I'm having a hard time immediately finding how many Chinese exhibitors participated in the last PlastIndia show, in 2006. But I've not been impressed with the Indian presence at Chinaplas -- Asia's largest plastics show. There were only six Indian exhibitors at Chinaplas earlier this year, down from nine in 2007.

We'll watch it closely and keep you updated.