India’s Ministry of Steel will not intervene to check the pricings of domestic steel mills, deputy steel minister Vishnu Deo Sai informed the Indian parliament on Wednesday, February 13.
The government will not intervene in the pricing adopted by local steel mills since India has a free pricing regime for the steel sector, the deputy minister said in response to large number of petitions received by the government from user industries complaining of domestic steel mills increasing steel prices to levels higher than international steel prices.
According to the deputy minister, the government for its part is taking measures to ensure that steelmaking inputs like iron ore, natural gas and coking coal are made available to domestic steel mills so that the latter can match the price competitiveness of international steel companies.
However, the Engineering Export Promotion Council (EEPC), the representative body for capital goods manufacturers-exporters, in a representation to the Ministry of Steel claimed that Indian steel companies’ domestic pricing is at least 20 percent higher than international prices whereas they are exporting steel intermediates at prices lower than domestic prices.
This in turn is resulting in overseas competitors of Indian engineering exporters being able to produce finished goods using Indian steel at much lower prices, while Indian manufacturers have to bear higher steel input prices, the EEPC said.