The Indian steel market is abuzz with the news of MIP since the start of Dec’15. Industry participants got more optimistic after the Steel Secretary of India, Aruna Sundarajan on 22 Dec’15 said that the government is working on various measures to protect domestic steel industry from cheaper imports and is likely to announce MIP very soon.
With the news of MIP, domestic prices of semi-finished and finished steel products registered an increase in the range of INR 750-1,000/MT and Indian steel market seemed to gain momentum.
However, in a recent interview with Bloomberg TV, Commerce Minister, Ms. Nirmala Sitharaman quoted that government is not in a rush to announce MIP on steel imports thus crushing the hopes of Indian steel makers.
It was also reported that government is looking for alternative measures in order to alleviate pressure faced by Indian steel industry due to cheaper imports. The key concern in India is to deal with excess capacity of raw materials which is majorly being impacted by Chinese imports.
The government basically is looking out to strike a balance between providing cheaper raw material for labour intensive industries and keeping domestic industry competitive.
After the 20% provisional safeguard duty on HRC was announced in Sep’15, Indian steel industry lobbied for including more steel products under safeguard duty.
However even 20% safeguard duty was not enough to curb cheaper HRC imports in to India especially from China and thus the industry is also demanding hike on safeguard duty on HRC.
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