NEW DELHI: Lending voice to the industry's demand for anti-dumping duty, Tata Steel Managing Director, Mr B Muthuraman on Thursday said the government should take measures to protect the sector from cheap imports of the commodity.
"We need to ensure that dumping does not take place. We need to ensure that we have good mechanisms to protect the Indian industry from unusually low priced imports,'' Mr Muthuraman told business news channel CNBC TV18.
Though admitting that steel prices in India are a notch higher than global rates due to firming up of domestic demand, Mr Muthuraman said there is a need for anti-dumping measures to ensure that low-priced imports does not hit domestic steel firms.
"The Indian prices are marginally higher than most parts of the world. Therefore, there is going to be little bit of pressure in India from imported material. There could be some dumping taking place, we need to take care of that,'' he said.
The steel companies, including Tata Steel, Essar and Ispat Industries had in November last year filed a petition for imposition of anti-dumping duty on steel, saying the surge in imports from countries like China may hit them.
Following the request, the government initiated a pre- investigation into the dumping of steel in the Indian market and at present is understood to be studying the responses of different parties.
Source : Business Line