Govt looking at policy response to contain steel imports

Government is looking at a comprehensive policy response as imposition of safeguard duty on steel imports has failed to contain the imports, a top official today said.
Commerce Secretary Rita Teaotia said that recently the government imposed a 20 per cent safeguard duty on certain categories of steel but the the industry continues to feel "stressed" and the imports actually remains at the same level.
"We have to look at it at a global context. What is the level of supply? What is the level at which people are actually willing to bring their prices down to have access to markets and what should be the instruments by which we will look to address this. So i think, we are going to looking at in a comprehensive policy response," she told reporters here.

She said things are being worked out to deal with the surge in imports.
When asked what could be the options other than imposing duties, she said: "it is a work in progress".
Safeguard duty is a WTO-compatible temporary measure that is brought in for a certain timeframe to avert any damage to a country's domestic industry from cheap imports.

During the examination of applications of major steel producers like SAIL, Essar Steel and JSW Steel, the DG Safeguards had found "prima-facie increased imports (of certain kinds of steel) have caused or are threatening to cause serious injury to domestic producers..."

Domestic steel producers had complained of a surge in imports of steel products like hot-rolled steel and other variants from China, Korea, Japan and Russia.
In June, India had slapped anti-dumping duty of up to USD 316 per tonne on imports of certain steel products from three countries, including China, to protect domestic producers from below-cost inbound shipments.
Industry is complaining that despite imposition of these duties, steel imports continue to rise from countries like China.