Six countries including China, Japan and Russia dump steel in India: DGAD

KOLKATA: India has found prima facie evidence that six countries — China, Japan, Korea, Russia, Brazil and Indonesia — dumped steel in the country, hurting the domestic industry.

The Directorate General of Anti-Dumping & Allied Duties (DGAD), which functions under the commerce ministry, is investigating the matter on the basis of petitions filed by Steel Authority of India, JSW SteelBSE 0.26 % and Essar Steel India and supported by Tata SteelBSE 1.84 % and Jindal Steel & Power. The probe covers products such as hot rolled coils, sheets and plates, including plate mill plates.

There is prima facie sufficient evidence of dumping of these steel products by these countries, which has caused significant injury to the domestic steel industry, the DGAD said in an official notification dated April 11.

The probe for the period from July to December covered products including those used in the automotive industry, oil and gas pipelines, cold-rolling, pipe and tube manufacturing, infrastructure and construction, general engineering & fabrication, earth-moving & mining equipment, storage tanks, low-pressure heaters and capital goods including plant and process equipment for cement and fertilisers.

"Our steel industry is in a critical phase with margins and profitability under severe strain primarily due to dumping at predatory prices into India," said Jayant Acharya, director (commercial & marketing) at JSW Steel. "Such unfair trade affects our viability like it has affected steel industry in the rest of the world. While the Indian steel sector is competitive, we need adequate protection from those producers/countries which get state subsidy to produce steel."

"Expediting the provisional antidumping duty is the next step, which will ensure such predatory steel imports are curtailed," said H Shivramkrishnan, Chief Commercial Officer at Essar Steel India. "After a thorough review of the petition, DGAD has found substantive evidence of dumping and injury to the domestic steel industry."

HR steel imports from the six countries amounted to 1.46 million tonne in FY14 and are estimated to have surged more than threefold to 5.5 million tonne in FY16, based on annualised July-December figures.

The domestic steel companies had claimed that the increasing imports had resulted in deterioration of their sales, production, capacity utilisation, market share and returns on capital employed.

The DGAD also invoked the clause of retroactive duty. Assuming that the provisional anti-dumping duty is levied by June 15, the retroactive clause will apply on import arrivals 90 days before the date of the provisional findings, which will be April 15, 2016.