CNBC-TV18 last week reported that after Indian government on last Monday deferred a decision to impose a safeguard duty on imported steel products, Mr Nitin Johri CFO of Bhushan Steel Limited said currently there is no need for any safeguard duty on steel.
He is reported to have said that “Indian HR makers have an advantage of USD 30 per tonne to USD 40 per tonne versus international players and domestic prices are lower by INR 2000 per tonne compared with international prices.”
Mr Johri said that “I think steel secretary is right saying that at this moment this is a no need for imposing any safeguard duty. If one sees the market, this move was started sometime four months back when the steel industry was not doing well. But if one sees in the last 4 months the capacity relation of the primary producers have gone up and everybody is utilizing 100% of their capacities. So where is the question of not selling the goods even in India. Everybody is selling the goods in India. There are people who are importing goods. It means that the demand is more than what the local people are producing.”
He added that “Secondly, it is not only HR one has to impose the duty on all these steel products, like CR and other products because if one does not impose the duty on CR and other products the other products will keep importing. If people will start importing the other products it will have a counter productive amazes.”
He further added that “Domestic prices are still higher than the international prices and they are able to sell the goods in the domestic market. It is ruling around INR 28,000 per tonne where it you import it is cheaper, slightly cheaper. They are able to sell full quantities because everybody cannot import the HR coil in the country. It is only few producers, big producers can import or who has a good requirement of the quantities. So if one sees the differential I think it is not much between the international market and domestic market but yes, there is a differential of about INR 2000 per tonne.”
Source : CNBC-TV18