India’s steel imports staged a rebound in March, reversing the month-on-month declining trend witnessed in the previous two months, initial provisional steel ministry data showed.
India imported 994,000 tons of steel in March, 18.2% higher than a year ago and 9% higher than a month ago, according to the data.
The country’s steel imports had declined month-on-month in January and February, owing to a 20% safeguard duty slapped on import of cheap materials.
For the financial year 2015-16, India’s steel imports rose 20.2% to 11.21 million tons (mt).
Most part of the last financial year saw domestic steel manufacturers struggle with higher and cheaper steel imports from countries such as China and Russia, impacting both demand and prices for domestic steel.
In a bid to arrest rising imports, India imposed a provisional safeguard duty of 20% on certain imported steel products in September for 200 days. In March, the safeguard duty was further extended up to March 2018.
In February, India also put in place a minimum import price (MIP) on various categories of steel to further curtail cheaper imports. These measures have failed to arrest the rise in imports seen in March, which was 9.1% higher compared to February imports.
However, the duty would be reduced to 10% in stages over the next two years.
“It is largely believed that the cumulative impact of these two recent and other existing policy measures would lead to further reduction in imports into the country in the coming days,” a steel ministry statement said.
Month |
Imports (in million tons) in 2015-16 |
% month on month |
March |
0.994 |
9.0 |
February |
0.912 |
-1.4 |
January |
0.925 |
-1.7 |
December |
0.941 |
23.2 |
November |
0.764 |
-35.4 |
October |
1.183 |
39.2 |
September |
0.850 |
-7.7 |