India government body not in favour of safeguards on unwrought aluminium

NEW DELHI (Reuters) - An Indian government body has decided against imposing safeguards on some aluminium products citing lack of evidence over imports hurting profitability of domestic industry.

The Directorate General of Safeguards, which comes under the finance ministry, said imports had come down while production and sale of unwrought aluminium that is extracted from primary metal or scrap, had gone up.

"There exists an injury to the DI (domestic industry) but there exists no serious injury or threat of serious injury to the domestic industry in the POI (period of investigation) and hence no protection under the safeguard law is required," the directorate said in a notification dated Dec. 13.

In April, the government began probe into imports of unwrought aluminium after complaints from local companies, including Vedanta Ltd and Hindalco Industries Ltd.

For a link to the full circular, see: http://bit.ly/2hv2ipl

(Reporting by Neha Dasgupta; Editing by Gopakumar Warrier)