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Journalism of Courage
CALCUTTA, AUG 1: Bhilai Steel Plant (BSP) of the Steel Authority of India Limited (SAIL) is likely to bear the brunt of the anti-dumping duty imposed by the US on imports of steel from seven countries, including India.
SAIL sources said that BSP is the largest exporter to the US of ship building quality steel plate from India with a quantity of around 1 lakh tonnes per annum and it is likely to suffer the most. A provisional 58 per cent anti-dumping duty in addition to 14 per cent countervailing duty was announced by the United States department of commerce on Indian steel plate for, what it alleged, was dumping by Indian steels companies. The US expects to cut down on its imports of steel plates by this measure.
Other than India, the US commerce department has levied duties on imports from Japan, Indonesia, Italy, France, Brazil and South Korea.
India, however, claimed that Indian firms did not dump the material but exported it at competitive prices. Meanwhile, the domestic manufacturers claimed thatfixation of minimum floor price for imported steel by the Indian government has not really helped the domestic steel producers either in the way of slow down imports or by providing them a level playing field as non-dutiable imported steel flow in huge quantity continued through duty entitlement passbook (DEPB) scheme.
Industry sources said in fact the quantum of imports has increased after fixation of floor price by the government in December, 1998.
An approximate quantity of 2,81,000 tonnes, at a monthly average of more than 46,000 tonnes, of HR coils have been imported to India during the period from January to June 99 and the lion’s share of the imports came as duty free imports under advance licence scheme at average prices ranging from 190 to USD 220 per tonnes and partly imported at a marginally higher than floor price of USD 232 per tonnes for defective/second grade of HR coils, they said.
Moreover, the loss posted by all domestic company put together to a total of whopping Rs 2000 crore during1998-99 compared to profit of Rs 423 crore during 1997-98 and they claimed that it had jeopardised the Indian steel industry.
While SAIL, Essar, Jindal, Lloyds made losses of Rs 1573.66 crore, Rs 496.45 crore, Rs 28 crore and Rs 197.89 crore respectively, Tisco and Ispat had declined in their profit to Rs 282.23 crore and Rs 25.08 crore respectively.The Indian steel scenario, particularly the HR product, was likely to deteriorate further considering that in 1998-99 domestic capacity was 10.6 mt against the market demand of 7.5 mt. With Ispat’s second unit of 1.8 mt capacity scheduled to go on stream in 1999-2000, domestic capacity will increase to 12.4 mt.
