India's proposed steel import tax smaller than hoped, but 'better than nothing', steelmakers say
India's proposed 12% tax on steel imports was less than the industry had expected, but will give some relief from an influx of cheap Chinese imports, executives said on Wednesday.
Despite being the world's second-biggest crude steel producer, India shipped in record quantities of steel from China, South Korea and Japan in the first 10 months of the financial year that started in April.
Its Directorate General of Trade Remedies, part of the federal trade ministry, said late on Tuesday it had proposed a 12% safeguard duty on steel imports for 200 days to "eliminate the serious injury and threat thereof to the domestic industry".
With Steel Minister H.D. Kumaraswamy saying last month the country could impose a 15%-25% tax on steel from China because of the "serious challenge" to domestic producers from cheap imports, that missed industry expectations.
"The industry was hoping that it would be more than 15%," one executive at a leading steelmaker, who declined to be named, said. "But at least the government has decided to move in the direction of acting on imports."
