India’s Directorate General for Foreign Trade (DGFT) has made it mandatory for steel traders to register themselves with India’s Steel Import Monitoring (SIM) system for the import of 215 steel product categories, according to a DGFT notification issued on Friday, September 6.
According to the official notification issued by the DGFT, SIM will require all importers of steel products to submit in advance information online for import of steel products and obtain an automatically generated number by paying specified fees.
Any importer can apply for registration not earlier than the 60th day and not later than the 15th day before the expected arrival of a consignment. A single registration number will be valid for a period of 75 days from initial logging in.
The importer will then have to enter the registration number and expiry date of registration in the bill of entry to enable customs authorities to clear the consignment, the notification said.
India’s Ministry of Steel has welcomed the move to introduce the new system by the DGFT, claiming that this will promote usage of indigenous steel and give a boost to the government’s “Make in India|” policy initiative.
Imported steel products that will be covered under SIM include flat rolled products, stranded steel wire, ropes, cables, steel springs and leaves, springs of iron and steel, tubes, pipes, hollow profiles and certain steel diesel and electric locomotive parts and steel spares and parts used in railways.