Japanese companies should prioritize sourcing steel from India as India steel companies are producing high-quality steel products, India's minister for commerce and industry Piyush Goyal said during a visit to Tokyo on Tuesday, August 25.
Minister Goyal said that he has been urging Japanese industry over the last seven years to source from India at least those steel products that are competitively priced and meet Japanese quality standards.
"Even if they are cheaper or of the same quality as Japanese steel...somehow they do not buy from India," he said.
The minister questioned how India could be expected to protect foreign companies from trade measures when they do not support Indian domestic producers by sourcing from the country.
"It's a matter of concern for me. That's not a fair trade," he said, suggesting Japanese firms should approach the Directorate General of Trade Remedies (DGTR) on the antidumping and safeguard duty-related issues,” Goyal is heading a 200-strong Indian business delegation to Japan.
In reply to queries from Japanese business people on India imposing its own tariff barriers on steel imports, Goyal said that it has imposed only a 12 percent safeguard duty on imports of lower grades of steel products, compared to much higher rates by other steel importing countries like the US and European Union.
The 12 percent safeguard duty on steel imports was levied for the first year (2025-26), is lower at 11.5 percent in 2026-27 and will be even lower at 11 percent in 2027-28.
Goyal said that India has taken a balanced approach by imposing the safeguard duty only on lower grades of steel, and higher grades can be imported freely.
