Slowly but surely, India seems to be shifting the goal posts on its minimum import price policy designed to protect the domestic steel industry.
India recently extended the anti-dumping duty on cold-rolled flat steel products from four nations, including China, Brazil and South Korea to guard the domestic steel industry from cheap imports for another two months. The duty was expected to expire after six months and was recently extended to give it a total duration of eight.
India had previously imposed a minimum import prices (MIP) to protect the steel industry and the cold-rolled duties came in addition to the MIP. The policy was described as a short-term emergency measure while anti-dumping duties are a long-term measure to protect the country’s trade.
Yet, according to a recent media report, India’s steel secretary Aruna Sharma said there would be no minimum import price (MIP) extension for 19 steel products.
India started imposing an anti-dumping duty of $474-$557 per metric ton on hot-rolled flat products of alloy and non-alloy steel imported from China, Japan, South Korea, Russia, Brazil and Indonesia in August.
There are other early signs of a perceptible shift in policy, too. A Press Trust of India (PTI) report quoted India’s Steel Minister Chaudhary Birendra Singh as saying the domestic steel industry must gear up to face global competition as protectionist measures “cannot continue indefinitely.”
In an article that he wrote the Minister, while not being very explicit about the government’s position on such protectionist measures and their continuity, said the Ministry of Steel had taken up the issues of tariff and non-tariff support measures for steel products which resulted in the imposition of an MIP, anti-dumping duties, safeguard duties and adjustment in rates for movement of freight over a period of time. These steps, he wrote, had ensured a level playing field for the Indian steel industry to grow and compete on equal terms with international steel companies.
There are some key players in the government including the Steel Minister who seem to be coming around to the point of view that India’s steel sector is on its way to becoming stable so a slow withdrawal of the protectionist measures must begin in order to make the industry globally competitive.