India imposes new duties on steel products

The Finance Ministry on Friday imposed anti-dumping duties on some steel products from Brazil, Russia, China, Korea, Japan and Indonesia. An official statement said that the duty will be effective for five years from August 8 last year. Foreign firms including Shagang International, Hyundai, POSCO, Toyota Tshusho Corporation, Nippon Steel & Sumikin Bussan, Sumitomo and Ohmi Industries have been named in the final anti-dumping order. They have been identified as companies that have been dumping their steel products into India. The new duty has been imposed on 47 products and ranges from $478 per tonne to $561 per tonne. The Directorate General of Anti Dumping had recommended a base price of $489 a tonne on HR coil imports from China; the prevailing provisional anti-dumping duty price was fixed at $478 a tonne. Since then, steel prices in China jumped to $500 a tonne last month due to sharp rise in coking coal prices. However, it fell back to $470-480 a tonne as coking coal exports from Australia revived after tropical cyclone Debbie disrupted supplies in March. Indian buyers had to pay only an import duty of 12.5 per cent if the imported steel price was above the base price that triggers an anti-dumping duty.