Indian engineering product exporters have approached India’s Ministry of Commerce complaining over the appreciating local currency and contradictory rise in steel prices,” an official at India’s Engineering Export Promotion Council (EEPC) said on Tuesday, April 18.
In a communication to the Ministry of Commerce, the top organization representing engineering product manufacturer-exporters pointed out that the Indian rupee has appreciated almost five percent against the US dollar but, as a contradictory trend, domestic steel prices are also being increased by steel mills, the EEPC official said.
The official stated that the appreciating rupee and the rising price of steel are a “double whammy” for engineering product exporters who are suffering from the loss of competitiveness of their products in the international markets.
In its complaint to the government, engineering product manufacturers have sought government intervention as the appreciating Indian rupee is translating into lower imported input costs - for coking coal - for steel producers, but the latter far from passing on the benefit to steel consumers are actually increasing finished steel prices.