Indian automobile manufacturing companies are opposed to any move by the government to impose safeguard duties on steel imports, the Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers (SIAM) said in a statement on Friday, January 31.
SIAM said that it has communicated its opposition to restricting steel imports to the ministry of commerce and the Directorate General of Trade Remedies (DGTR) under the ministry, which is currently probing the option to levy a 25 percent safeguard duty on steel imports.
SIAM said that only some amounts of specific grades of steel used by auto companies are being imported and there is no line of sight when these grades will be made available locally.
“We would like to highlight that more than 80 percent of steel used to make vehicles in India are sourced from domestic mills. However, almost all auto manufacturers have to rely on imports for some amount of steel for making some vehicles as the specified steel grades and not made by domestic mills,” SIAM said in its communication to the DGTR.
It said that auto companies are committed to driving localisation of auto manufacturing and that all companies are in talks with local steel mills to produce certain grades but there are specific timelines and investments involved which are required to make such supplies feasible.