Steel Ministry Denies Rumours on Waiving off High Grade Iron Ore Export Duty

An exclusive interview with Union Steel Secretary – Aruna Sharma.

In an exclusive interview with Steel 360, Aruna Sharma, Steel Secretary shared that “Steel Ministry is not in support of reducing export duty on high grade iron ore from 30%. Government has already removed export duty on low-grade iron ore (both fines and lump) in the budget presented on 29 Feb’16. Thus, the priority is the low-grade iron ore stockpile lying in the states of Goa, Odisha and Chhattisgarh gets cleared. Rather than exporting high-grade iron ore, it may be of greater advantage if value addition is done to it and then exported.”

In Aug’16 , respective state governments of Odisha and Jharkhand had approached the Mines Ministry for removal of export duty on high grade iron ore with an aim to clear stockpile lying in the states. The recommendation was forwarded by the Mines Ministry to the Steel Ministry seeking their opinion on the same.

However, on the other side, major Indian steel makers are of the view that iron ore being a natural resource should be preserved for domestic use and should not be exported.

As per the latest report released by Mines Ministry , there is a wide gap of almost 9.6 MnT between India’s iron ore production and dispatches in FY16. Odisha – India’s largest iron ore producing state produced 79.9 MnT iron ore last year and dispatches in the same period amounted to 69.9 MnT. Thus a difference of 10 MnT between the two figures is clearly visible.

State-wise iron ore production and dispatches in FY16

Fig in MnT
Source: Ministry of Mines, Govt. of India