Process plant makers body against excess protection to steel

Apex body of process plant makers in India, PPMAI has sought Prime Minister Narendra Modi's intervention against excessive protectionism to steel sector, saying it will hit capital goods industry and MSME.
Process Plant and Machinery Association of India (PPMAI), in a letter to the PM, has opposed excessive protectionism, including imposition of minimum import price (MIP) being given to the steel sector in the country, PPMAI said in a statement.
Process plant and machinery manufacturers include companies like Larsen & Toubro, Godrej, Thermax, Praj Industries and ThyssenKrupp Industrial Solutions and have strongly objected the perpetual protectionist environment being created excessively in favour of steel sector without consulting the capital goods and industry sector.

"India is in the process of globalising its manufacturing base through establishment of capital equipment and downstream industries in MSME to generate employment as well as boost Make in India vision...
"However, government must understand that this goal is endangered if our industrial and trade policies are based on narrow perspectives of protectionism for one individual industry," said PPMAI Secretary V P Ramachandran.
In the letter, PPMAI said if steel industry, including stainless steel, is favoured with so much of excessive protectionism including curb on imports with anti dumping duties, additional safeguard duties and MIP, it will end up as a burden on the economy and scare away investors in other productive capital equipment as well as downstream MSME areas.

"Government has already provided enough protection to steel industry through high imports duties, rupee devaluation by over 50 per cent and trade barriers such as anti-dumping or safeguard duties.

"In a deregulated environment, government is taking away capital goods industries' right to access the required quality of raw materials and intermediates at competitive price," it said.
Questioning as to why steel sector alone is being taken care of and that too at the prospect of killing the downstream capital goods & MSME sector, it said the government's recent proposal to impose MIP for steel products without discussing with all stakeholders will further create confusion if arbitrary price is fixed, it added.

"PPMAI urges the government to make the duty structure logical and bring down the import duties on semis and intermediates like hot and cold rolled carbon steel and stainless steel to the original rate of 5 per cent.
"If China, Korea and Japan are dumping at low price, start anti-dumping investigations instead of further protection through import curbs as Indian economy is not only steel sector alone," the letter said.