Goods exporters body seeks parity between domestic, export steel price

In a presentation made to the Union government, EEPC chose products that were used by the broad majority of the engineering industry

To bring a parity between the domestic and export prices of steel, the Engineering Export Promotion Council of India (EEPC India) has asked the Union government to consider several measures, including price parity in indigenous and exported steel and lowering of basic customs duty on some steel products.

The engineering export body has time and again stated that the price of domestic steel procured by exporters is higher than the cost of steel exported from the country.

Another suggestion that the exporters’ lobby has made is that the basic customs duty on some steel products should be removed, in turn lowering the price of domestically manufactured steel.

“The moment we reduce the basic customs duty, the price of domestic steel goes down,” Suranjan Gupta, additional executive director, EEPC India said.

In a presentation made to the Union government, EEPC chose products that were used by a broad majority of the engineering industry.

The analysis by EEPC India is restricted to a few primary steel products used by a broad majority of the engineering industry. The analysis is carried out on Hot Rolled Coils and also provides data for other key raw materials like Wire Rods, Pig Iron, blooms, and billets.

EEPC India said that there existed a variation in Indian domestic prices measured by various sources. Prices obtained from foreign agencies like Steel Business Briefing and Metal Bulletin and prices obtained from the steel ministry were lower when compared with prices obtained from the Joint Plant Committee (JPC).

It added, "One factor could be GST in the JPC prices while Steel Ministry prices are Ex-mill and SBB prices are Duty Delivered prices."

The JPC prices average for four cities in India, by and large, reflects the domestic prices being paid by users of HRC.

India exports prices of HRC are much lower than the domestic prices for HRC bought by users.

EEPC said that the engineering exporters be provided steel at the export prices.

However, it said that for only certain critical primary raw materials of specification like HRC, billets, CRC, a Minimum Export Price band be implemented, provided it is World Trade Organisation (WTO) compliant.

Meanwhile, engineering goods exports rose by 17.63 per cent in April to ship out $ 7.18 billion worth of exports, up from the 2.62 per cent rise in March. Before that, it had fallen by 1.88 per cent in February.