PPMAI urges Govt not to further hike import duty on stainless steel

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SME Times News Bureau | 14 Jan, 2015
Process Plant & Machinery Association of India (PPMAI) has written to Director General of Safeguard Duties not to impose any further duty on import of Cold Rolled Flat Products of Stainless Steel of 400 series in larger interest of the capital goods industry and the prevailing economic situation in the country.

"Such an action of initiation of Safeguard duty proceeding by Director General of Safeguards over the Last year budget increase of 7.5 percent from 5 percent on imports of stainless steel coils and sheets plus advantage gained by the domestic stainless steel producer through devaluation of rupee by over 40 percent in last couple of years will affect the downstream industry in the country," Secretary, PPMAI, V. P. Ramachandran said in a press statement on Tuesday.

"There are already anti dumping duties applicable on a host of stainless steel imports from practically all countries on the behest of local single private sector producer. Currently most of the stainless steel imports are from Japan and Korea who basically supply these grades for their car units set up in India where the material standards call for the imports from these countries only. Moreover these countries as well as Malaysia enjoy special rate of import duty as a result of FTA with them. Due to FTA, the petitioner also gains access to these countries to export from India," said Ramachandran.

He said, "The imports from China do not seem so alarming as per the data available in the country. The imports from Europe are of high quality but very low in volumes and at a much higher price than the local producers because the industry needs such high quality product imports which are not available from the domestic stainless steel producer."

"Indian stainless steel industry has a limited range of products and their quality of products and commercial dealings are inconsistent and not world class. We do have Salem Steel Plant , though not there as petitioner, and they too have extremely limited range of products. Therefore imports shall happen and can not be stopped. Therefore the initiation of safeguard duty is actually based on incorrect data from petitioner which does not justify this initiation at all," added Ramachandran.

"We do have confidence in the new government that it will take care of all end user industries including SMEs and not support any action which leads to creating any undue advantage for the petitioner to suit their individual business interests.We therefore appeal to DG to reject this proposal of the petitioner for imposing safeguard duty," he added.