Posted on 12 Aug 2015
A day after the devaluation of the Chinese currency, the Government has raised the import duty on selective steel products by 2.5 per cent. This is the second increase within two months.
Finance Minister Arun Jaitley tabled a notification in both Houses of Parliament on Wednesday. Earlier, in June, the Government raised the import duty on selective steel items. The duty was raised after a continous increase of cheap imports from China.
Now, the import duty on semi ingots product will be 10 per cent (from 7.5 per cent). Similarly, duty on stainless steel long products, alloy steel long products, non-alloy long products and alloy steel flat products has been raised to 10 per cent from 7.5 per cent. At the same time, non-alloy flat products and some specified alloy steel products will attract import duty of 12.5 per cent. However, there is no change in the duty on CRGO (5 per cent) and stainless steel flat products (7.5 per cent).
Steel imports from China increased to around 20 lakh tonnes during April-January of 2014-15, which was over 200 per cent more than the corresponding period of fiscal 2013-14. Now, after devaluation, there is a fear of more and more dumping of cheap Chinese steel. Apprehending this, the Government has raised the duty again in order to protect the interest of domestic steel companies.
