India’s Ministry of Steel will hold consultations with all stakeholders particularly steel consumers before taking any decision on the continuation of the minimum import price (MIP) for steel beyond December 4, 2016, a ministry official said on Tuesday, October 18.
The official said that the MIP for 66 steel products had been extended until December 4 purely based on requests and suggestions of steel producers and the distress from higher supplies and falling margins faced by domestic steel producers.
However, there have been several communications from the Ministry of Commerce on the erosion of the competitiveness of Indian capital goods in international markets as capital goods manufacturers have been deprived of access to cheap imported steel, the steel ministry official said.
According to the official, the consultation process on the further continuation of the MIP beyond December 4 would give “due and adequate significance” to the steel consuming manufacturing sector and a “finer balance between conflicting claims of steel producer and consumers will have to be found”.
Acknowledging the impact of the MIP in reducing steel imports by 35 percent during April-August 2016 to 3 million mt compared to the corresponding period of the previous year, the official said that, despite the success of the MIP, the government and all ministries agreed that the MIP could not be extended every time it expires.