MUMBAI: India’s steel imports fell in November for the first time in eight months, thanks to a government move in August to impose a 20% safeguard duty on some steel products to protect local producers from cheap overseas supplies.
Inbound shipment last month fell 6.9% to 0.76 million tonne from 0.82 million tonne a year earlier, according to data released by the joint plant committee (JPC), an industry statistic division of the steel ministry. This is the first time steel imports have shown a year-on-year decline in 2015-16.
The provisional safeguard duty and the fall in imports have helped major steel producers like JSW Steel Ltd, Essar Steel India and Tata Steel Ltd to increase production.
The government is looking to extend safeguard duty to more steel products, steel secretary Aruna Sundararajan said on 2 December.
Domestic integrated steel producers reported a 4.8% rise in production in November against a 11% production fall reported by smaller steel producers, according to the JPC data. The total production for sale in November declined 3.5%.
For the April-November period, steel imports remained high with a 34.4% rise from a year ago. The rise reflects higher steel imports in April-August 2015.
In August, India imposed a 20% safeguard duty on select steel products for a period of 200 days to curb cheap imports. The total domestic production for sale for the April-November period showed a marginal decline of 0.7% even as domestic consumption rose 5.3%.
“I expect it to be temporary as probably these shipments were booked when safe guard duty was imposed, as that surely hit the imports from Japan and Korea. Also, buyers have been waiting for prices to bottom out in China to resume booking orders. I think without any changes in the overall situation imports can resume again, as global prices fell sharply in last three months,” said Goutam Chakraborty, an analyst at Emkay Global Financial Services.
