Steel industry now seeks anti-circumvention duty

28 January 2016

After the anti-dumping duty on imports of cold-rolled flat products of stainless steel last month, domestic stainless steel industry is seeking for anti-circumvention duties on the same product and has already approached the Ministry of Commerce with its plea.

"The recently levied duty is on cold-rolled flat products ranging between 600-1,250 mm. But exporting countries are evading this duty by sending cold-rolled flats higher than 1250 mm. Due to this, the imposed anti-dumping duty has not helped the stainless steel industry in any way," Ankur Agrawal, chief financial officer of Jindal Stainless (Hisar) told Business Standard.

Agrawal was speaking on the sidelines of the 'bell ringing' ceremony held here. Begining today, Jindal Stainless (Hisar) has started trading on the NSE and Bombay Stock Exchange. Shares of the company were trading at Rs 37 on the BSE.

Last month, the Centre imposed an anti-dumping duty ranging from 5-57% on import of cold-rolled flat products of stainless steel for five years. In a notification, the Central Board of Excise and Customs said the duty has been imposed on China, South Korea, the US, South Africa, Thailand and Taiwan, besides the European Union.

The highest duty has been levied on steel imports from China at 57.39%, followed by the European Union at 52.56%. Imports from Thailand have the least duty imposition of 4.58%.

China, the world's largest consumer and producer of the commodity, has been dumping various grades and varieties of steel across the globe on the back of surplus supply. This was perhaps the main reason why China attracted the highest anti-dumping duty.

"Preliminary investigations by the Commerce Ministry is on," said Agrawal. "We do not know when the outcome can be expected but a thorough investigation of the injury to the industry would take atleast another 30-40 days," he added.

Apart from Jindal Stainless (Hisar), state-owned Steel Authority of India is also a large producer of cold-rolled flat products of stainless steel. Stainless steel cold-rolled flats, however, largely comprise small unorganised players.

 

business-standard.com