Big Alliance Seeks Sops To Revive Sector

The Indian Steel Alliance (ISA), an association of six major steel producers, today demanded a special package of financial restructuring to revive the domestic steel industry. ISA, under the aegis of the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII), met finance minister Yashwant Sinha and briefed him on the changes in the global steel industry and its negative impact on the industry.

The delegation lead by former Tata Steel managing director J J Irani said the steel industry has incurred a cumulative loss of Rs 1,000 crore in the first quarter of the current fiscal even as international steel prices have declined by about 40 per cent over the last two years. "It is expected that global overcapacity would continue to exist for the next five years," ISA said.

ISA said the key elements of domestic agenda include review of duties and levies on the steel industry, reduction and maintaining of current rates of administered prices of inputs and a special package of financial restructuring.

"Compounding the problem, global markets were being closed to Indian producers by imposition of anti-dumping action and measures such as section 201 investigations launched by the US," it said.

The ISA delegation comprised Steel Authority of India (SAIL) chairman Arvind Pande, Tata Steel managing director B Muthuraman and representatives from Essar Steel and Ispat Industries.

Meanwhile, industry sources said that the US steel industry has opposed the proposed suspension of the anti-dumping and countervailing duties against the import of hot-rolled coils from India.

It has also objected to any agreement between the two countries on the issue. According to US law, the domestic industry has to agree to all the suspension agreements.

"The US manufacturers do not see any advantage in accepting the suspension agreement as imports from India have increased to a point where it has become the largest foreign supplier of hot-rolled steel last year," sources said.

Indian industry's negotiations with the US department of commerce (DOC) have not yielded any result with DOC rejecting all the terms proposed by the Indian side. India last year exported nine lakh tonnes of HR steel to the US.