Major steel exporters like South Korea, Japan and the European Union (EU) have lodged complaints with the World Trade Organization (WTO) against India’s imposition of a minimum import price (MIP) for steel products, saying that the MIP violates multilateral trade rules, an official at India’s Ministry of Commerce said on Wednesday, April 27.
Japan and the EU have stated that India imposed a blanket import protection regardless of the country of origin, while it could have gone for antidumping duties on imports from specific countries based on detailed investigations. The WTO has forwarded the complaints to India’s Ministry of Commerce.
The official said that India will base its response on global overcapacity in the steel industry, the inflow of cheap imports, and the fact that several other countries have also imposed protectionist measures.