Steel from manufacturers in Japan and South Korea are landing up in the Indian markets, thus denting the Indian domestic steel industry. US President Donald Trump imposed an import duty on steel this year, forcing the mills in that country to redirect the supply.
An internal document from the Ministry of Steel said that compared to last year, India’s steel imports from South Korea rose 31 per cent from a year earlier, and imports from Japan rose 30 per cent. The imports are so huge that the Indian Government is thinking of regulations to restrict imports, according to Minister Chaudhary Birender Singh.
Foreign supplies to India reached 2.1 million tonnes between April 2018 and June 2018, an increase of 15 per cent compared to the previous year. Thus, India has overtaken United States as the third largest market for steel for South Korea. This is according to data from the Korea Iron and Steel Association.
A senior government official said that India could impose safeguards. According to the World Trade Organisation rules, safeguards are temporary restrictions on imports of a product to protect a domestic industry. However, despite India’s domestic steel industry’s inability to meet the demand for high-end steel products needed for railway lines and structural steel used for construction projects, the government would continue taking such measures.
Import of steel for railway purpose rose to more than 18,000 tonnes during April to June this year compared to 500 tonnes for the same period of the previous year. For construction, steel imports more than doubled to nearly 220,000 tonnes during the same period.
