As per the latest updates, India has initiated anti-subsidy investigation into stainless steel flat products imports coming from Indonesia. The application for the same has been filed Indian Stainless Steel Development Association (ISSDA), Jindal Stainless Limited (JSL) and Jindal Stainless (Hisar) Limited and Jindal Stainless Steelway Limited (JSSL).
India’s Anti-Subsidy Investigation concerning Imports of Stainless Steel from Indonesia
1. The products under consideration comes under customs sub-heading nos. 7219 and 7220 of Chapter 72 of the Customs Tariff Act, 1975 and can be transacted in number of different forms such as coils, sheets, plates, circles, strips or otherwise.
2. The products excluded includes blade steel, or commercially known as razor blade grade steel used in the production of razor, coin blank falling under 73269099 used in the production of monetary coins.
3. The petitioners have claimed that imports are causing threat of material injury, considering substantial increase in imports in the POI, positive price undercutting, surplus capacities, capacity addition and high export orientation of producers in Indonesia and trade remedial measure imposed by various countries on the subject goods.
4. The Authority has found that there is prima facie evidence of existence of countervailable subsidies on production and export of the subject goods in the subject country and such subsidized imports are causing material injury to the domestic industry through their volume and price effects resulting which investigation has been initiated by the authority.
5. The period of investigation (POI) in the present investigation is April 2018- March 2019. The injury investigation period will, however, cover the periods 2015-16, 2016-17, 2017-18 and the period of investigation.
6. A countervailing duty is a customs duty placed on goods that have received government subsidies in the originating or exporting country.
7. During the year, India imported about 227,740 tonnes of finished steel products from Indonesia, up from 107,040 tonnes the previous year, data from India’s Ministry of Steel showed. Of the total, flat stainless steel products made up about 76,132 tonnes.
8. The anti-subsidy probe comes amid ongoing anti-dumping investigations into flat-rolled stainless steel products from 15 countries/regions that began early July 2019. The anti-dumping probe covers China, the European Union, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, Singapore, South Africa, South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand, the United Arab Emirates, the US and Vietnam.
9. Indonesia is home to a stainless steel complex operated by China’s Tsingshan Group at Morowali, Indonesia, which has a production capacity of about 3 MnT. The country plans to turn the Morowali into a major stainless steel production area with about 4 MnT of capacity, which would make Indonesia the world’s second-biggest producer of the metal.
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