Taking action on behalf of local steel mills, India’s ministries for steel and heavy industries will shortly be holding meetings with the finance ministry, claiming that the recent hike in import duty rates were “not sufficient to safeguard” the domestic steel industry, a steel ministry official said on Monday, July 6.
The official said that the ministries will also express the dismay expressed by companies like JSW Limited and Kalyani Steel Limited that, at a time when imports from South Korea and Japan are flooding the Indian markets, the government had concluded long-term agreements with these two countries for export of high grade iron ore.
An inter-ministerial meeting on the issue is scheduled to be held within the next few weeks, he added.
According to the official, local steel mills which did not have captive iron ore mines have continued to face high-cost raw material issues and it is unfair to enter into iron ore export agreements with countries which posed major import competition to local producers.
The steel ministry data indicates that steel imports from South Korea and Japan during the April-May period, the first two months of the 2015-16 fiscal year, amounted to 1.67 million mt, up 55 percent over the corresponding months of the previous fiscal year.
Last month the Indian government approved a long-term agreement for export of iron ore to Japan and South Korea under which India will ship 16.5 million metric tons per year to the two major steel production nations, up to 2018.
The Indian government has increased import duties on flat products to 10 percent from 7.5 percent and on long products to 7.5 percent from five percent and both the ministries of steel and heavy industries will speak on behalf of the domestic industry seeking a flat higher rate of 15 percent import duty for both flat and long product imports, the official said.