Anti-dumping duty imposed on steel products from China: Vishnu Deo Sai

The Dollar Business Bureau 

The Government on Wednesday announced it had imposed anti-dumping duty on inbound shipments of various steel products from China in May this year.

The announcement was made by Minister of State in the Ministry of Steel, Vishnu Deo Sai, in Rajya Sabha, as the government looked to provide relief to the domestic steel industry as a whole.

The steel products under consideration included steel wheels, hot rolled flat product of stainless steel, cold rolled flat products of stainless steel and seamless tubes and pipes. The anti-dumping duty was in the range of $961-1610.67 per MT.

Steel imports from China have been under the scanner for a long time now, and the government has often come out with calculated measures to curb the product’s cheap imports. The agenda of the government has been to encourage domestic production of the metal and its subsequent channalisation in the domestic market.

According to the anti-dumping rules, the measure was announced after the designated authority examined the volume of dumped steel, the effect of dumping on prices in the domestic market and its consequent impact on the domestic industry.

Last month, the government had started another probe after domestic steel majors such as JSW Steel, Rashtriya Ispat Nigam, SAIL and Usha Martin submitted a petition before the Directorate General of Anti-Dumping and Allied Duties (DGAD), requesting it to investigate the product’s cheap dumping and its aftereffect on the domestic steel industry.

They complained that there has been of late an excessive dumping of certain steel items, mainly used in construction and automotive industry, originating from China.

Several parameters such as capacity utilisation, demand, prices, production capacity of the subject goods, volume of imports and wages are taken into consideration while conducting the anti-dumping investigations.

Provisional duties are levied with an aim to ensure immediate relief to the domestic steel industry, and the provisional anti-dumping charges are imposed for not more than 6 months of duration.