Hot-Rolled Coil Firms Slash Export Target By 42%

Hot-rolled (HR) coil producers have scaled down their export targets by 42 per cent for the current financial year to 1.4 million tonne against 2.4 million tonne in the previous year, following anti-dumping motions initiated by US with regard to HR products.

The recent anti-dumping case filed by the US producers with the US ministry of commerce against Indian HR imports has closed a major market for the producers.

Indian steel exports to US increased from 65,893.054 metric tonne in October 1999 to 907,845.072 metric tonne in September 2000. It maybe mentioned that steel exports, in general grew by 50.8 per cent in 1999-2000.

Moreover, the European Commission after determining a combined anti-dumping and subsidy duty on Indian producers came to accept price undertakings from individual exporters. However, this has made Indian exports completely unviable in the Commission.

The HR industry is represented by steel majors--Steel Authority of India Ltd (SAIL), Tata Steel, Essar Steel, Ispat Industries Ltd, Jindal Vijaynagar Steel Ltd (JVSL) and Lloyds Steel. Essar Steel, the country