The government today imposed a provisional anti-dumping duty on certain high-end stainless steel products imported from European Union and seven other countries, including China, Thailand and the US in an attempt to protect the domestic steel companies.
In a notification released by the Central Board of Excise and Customs (CBEC) today, anti-dumping duty in the range of $12.74 to $2,011 per metric tonne were imposed on three cold rolled steel products imported from China, Japan, Korea, the European Union, South Africa, Taiwan, Thailand and the United States.
About 15 overseas steel producers will be impacted because of this additional duty, which include Arcelor Mittal, Posco and Acerinox. The anti-dumping duty on cold rolled steel products has been imposed for a period of six months, ending October 21, 2009.
As a result, factories sell the products at very cheap in other countries in an attempt to recover fixed costs incurred while producing the item. In the wake of the ongoing global financial crisis, many countries have imposed anti-dumping duties on cheap imported products. In a recent report, the World Bank pointed out that India lead the global community in initiating the largest number of anti-dumping investigations.
The complaint on cheap imports of the product was filed by Jindal Stainless Ltd, a New Delhi-based company. The company accounts for 80 per cent of cold rolled steel products produced in the country.
The complaint was analysed by the Directorate General of Anti-dumping and Allied Duties under the Commerce Ministry, which recommended imposition of the duty.
The Finance Ministry notified a maximum levy of $1,823 per tonne on import of cold-rolled flat stainless products, mainly used by the automotive industry, for a period of six months, as recommended by the Directorate General of Anti-dumping and Allied Duties.
“The domestic industry had suffered material injury, the injury had been caused by the dumped imports from subject countries (like China, Thailand, the US, Spain, Korea and France),” it said.
“This was required in the wake of surge in imports. We have enough capacity to meet the domestic requirement,” said JSL LTD (earlier Jindal Stainless) Director (Corporate Affairs) N C Mathur.
Besides, the EU and China, products from the US, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, South Africa and Thailand would be impacted by the proposed duty.
China has been opposing anti-dumping measures by India, especially in the wake of global economic downturn, leading to slowing of demand for the Chinese products. However, India has maintained that such measures are WTO-compliant and are resorted to only when there is an import surge.
At present, a tonne of cold-rolled flat stainless steel is costing over $19,000 in the global market. In its finding, the DGAD stated the eight countries against which a provisional anti-dumping duty has been proposed exported the product below the normal value.
