There has been a lot of discussions on the minimum import price (MIP) on steel and a decision in this regard would be taken by the government, Commerce Secretary Rita Teaotia today said.
"On the MIP on steel, yes, there has been a lot of discussions on the steel sector and the difficulties being faced by the integrated steel units. There is also the downstream sector, which has been representing and arguing for their continuing access to low cost imported steel to balance the domestic supplies," she told reporters here.
Fixing of MIP, she said a decision on this "is to be taken by the government".
However, she added that one has to look at the total macro picture of the sector including the total steel consumption of the country.
Up to last year, India's imports were about 9 per cent of what it consumed and this year, it is somewhat higher, Teaotia said adding "the peak that we reached is 15 per cent".
"Nevertheless, 85 per cent of the steel is met domestically. This is the bottom-line that we continue to utilise domestic steel largely. So imports are not a huge element of our total steel consumption," she said.
She also said the country has considerable installed capacity and it is operating at about 80 per cent, which is a higher load factors than the rest of the world, averaging about 68 to 70 per cent.
Commerce and Industry Minister Nirmala Sitharaman had recently said the government will not rush into fixing a minimum import price (MIP) for certain steel products.
The domestic steel industry is mainly worried about cheap imports from China. The proposal to fix a minimum price for in-bound shipment of certain steel products is aimed precisely to keep those imports in check.
