Given the price hikes in Indian HRC post MIP, domestic HRC prices have come almost at par with landed cost of imports from Japan/Korea resulting in Indian steel majors to ask for further protection.
After introducing two trade barriers, safeguard duty and MIP on steel imports, Indian steel majors are now seeking further protection against import influx in the form of anti-dumping duty on select steel products.
SteelMint has heard that five Indian steel firms, JSW Steel, SAIL, Tata Steel, JSPL and Essar Steel have filed a petition with DG Anti-Dumping & Allied Duties (DGAD) for imposition of anti-dumping duty on – hot rolled flat products of alloy and other alloy steel, in coils of a width of 600 mm or more.
The petition has been accepted by the DGAD and if sources are to be believed DGAD has started investigation in the case by asking Korean and other countries embassies for information of steel exports to India.
Safeguard duty which is recently extended by the government till March 2018 is imposed on HRC imports from all the countries.
Since import duty under FTA on imports from Japan and Korea is 0% and 0.8% respectively, landed cost of imports from both the countries is low as compared to the imported costs from other countries. Thus, trade barrier like anti-dumping duty will help to restrict imports from a specific country as anti-dumping duty is country-specific.
There has been import influx of steel products in to India since last one year especially from China, Japan, Korea, and Russia. As per the provisional customs data, India’s HRC imports under HS code 7208 have increased considerably by 76% in FY16 against previous year and stood at 3.87 MnT.
Now it remains to be seen that whether government will impose anti-dumping duty on HRC import as in such cases, DGAD is required to complete their investigation procedure within 45-50 days of investigation initiation.
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