India’s ministry of steel has called for an ‘open house’ consultation on various issue related to steel imports, a ministry statement said on Thursday, October 23.
Companies and associations may present their issues in the open house scheduled for October 27 in New Delhi, the statement said.
This comes in wake of domestic steel industry as well as government bodies like the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) claiming that indiscriminate steel imports were affecting the competitiveness of domestic producers.
"The dumping of cheap steel from global producers may pose a risk to domestic steel production, which can be mitigated through suitable policy measures," RBI said in a recent report.
The government has already imposed a 12 percent safeguard duty on imports of certain steel products in the country for three years. The duty has been imposed on recommendations of the Directorate General of Trade Remedies (DGTR), under the commerce and industry ministry
However, domestic steel producers like JSW Steel Limited have called for a recalibration of the safeguard duty to ensure that dumping does not take place.
JSW Steel Limited said in a recent statement that the safeguard duty in its present form was not sufficient. The company pointed out that the rest of the world is looking at imposing more tariffs. Europe is proposing to reduce the quota by half from what they have and to double duty to 50 percent. After holding safeguard measures steady for eight years, they are now looking at a different mechanism to be able to safeguard their shores because they feel that the duties have not been effective enough.