The government has initiated a fresh crackdown to check dumping of low-grade steel and imposed mandatory quality control order for three grades of flat stainless steel products where imports have seen a surge over the past few months.
With this, production and trade of inferior quality steel stipulated under the quality control order would become a punishable criminal offence.
The move will help to curb below-cost and poor quality stainless steel imports from countries such as Malaysia, Korea and China.
The three countries have remained on India’s watch list as the centre on June 5 had imposed anti-dumping duty on hot rolled flat stainless being imported from there.
As per a steel ministry notification, mandatory quality standards, Bureau of India Standards (BIS) certification has been specified for three steel products – stainless steel sheets and strips used for making utensils, low nickel austenitic stainless steel sheet and strip for utensils and kitchen appliances and stainless steel plate, sheet and strip.
This is addition to 15 steel products where the government has already fixed quality standards.
Quality certifications empower BIS officials to dispose-off sub-standard products as scrap and initiate criminal proceedings against defaulting dealers and manufacturers. "The domestic stainless steel industry welcomes the proposal. Considering the diverse and extremely strategic applications of stainless steel, this order, if enacted, will go a long way in securing the interest of the domestic consumers,” said NC Mathur, president, Indian Stainless Steel Development Association (ISSDA).
“This will also help to curb the import of sub-standard stainless steel into the country and help to create conditions of free and fair competition," he added.
The move for strict quality control regulations for steel follows measures taken by the government to address the issue of rapid increase in steel imports. In June, the finance minister raised protection for carbon steel by increasing import duty by 2.5 per cent.
In the same month, India also slapped anti-dumping duty of up to $316 per tonne on imports of certain stainless steel products from Japan, Korea and China, to protect domestic producers from below-cost inbound shipments.
The finance ministry is also working on further raising import duty. The steel ministry is also pushing for removal of steel from the list of tradable items under free trade agreements (FTAs) to prevent zero or low duty imports.
The total steel imports in the country (including stainless steel) has risen 72 per cent in 2014-15 to 9.3 million tonnes. For stainless steel, imports has shot up by 42 per cent to 4,59,163 tonnes in 2014-15.
The domestic stainless steel production is about 1.25 million tonnes. The spurt in imports has not abated in the current fiscal year. Close to 1,03,636 tonnes was imported in the April-June quarter. Of the June import figure of 36,332 tonnes, imports from Malaysia stands 3,364 tonnes, the highest after China.
According to government data, China, South Korea and Japan together shipped almost 75 per cent of 25.7 lakh tonnes finished steel imported by India in the April-June quarter of the current fiscal. China leads the tally with 7.23 lakh tonnes followed by South Korea, 6.03 lakh tonnes , Japan 5.9 lakh tonnes, Ukraine 95,340 tonnes and Germany 89,070 tonnes.
Indonesia with 83,300 tonnes, Russia (56,720 tonnes) and Taiwan (44,840 tonnes) were the other major exporters of finished steel to India.
Source: mydigitalfc.com
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