Central Board of Excise and Customs (CBEC) has failed to issue anti-dumping notifications on HR and CR flat products of alloy and non-alloy steel even as DGAD’s final findings on such 107 products showed import of these products from China, Japan and Russia among others were causing material injury to the domestic stele industry.
The steel ministry, which was trying relentlessly to bring the domestic industry out of its torpor as a result of indiscriminate predatory imports from these countries, has requested the finance ministry to expedite the notification since the “provisional anti-dumping duty has apparently expired”.
On April 10 this year, DGAD in its final findings said that the imports of these products, which contribute around 80% of the total imports, were coming at a below normal value. Coupled with subdued demand and rampant predatory imports, domestic steel industry started grappling to remain afloat, but sank into debt contributing around 20% of the bad loans to the banking system.
Accordingly, DGAD recommended an effective duty for 36 CR flat products the difference between the reference rate of USD 576/MT and the landed value of the product and for 71 tariff lines of HR products the rates would be the difference between USD 489-561/MT and the landed value of such products.
If the import price is higher, a 12.5% import duty would be imposed.
In the process of phasing out WTO-non-compliant Minimum Import Price (MIP), initially imposed on 173 products in April 2015, the government had in August last year imposed provisional anti-dumping duty on such HR flat products in the range of USD 474-557/MT.
During the same month, provisional duty was imposed on CR flat products and the reference rate was fixed at USD 594/MT.
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