Voicing the Indian manufacturers' demand for antidumping duty measures, Tata Steel managing director B. Muthuraman has called on the Indian government to take restricting measures to protect the domestic steel industry against cheap imports.
"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 media.
Though admitting that steel prices in India are marginally higher than global levels due to stabilizing domestic demand, Mr. Muthuraman said there is still need for antidumping measures to ensure that low-priced imports do not injure domestic steel firms.
"There will be a little bit of pressure in India from imported material due to higher local prices. There could be some dumping taking place, we need to take care of that," the Tata Steel managing director said.
India steelmakers have been seeking the imposition of a 25 percent safeguard duty, alleging that countries like China are dumping steel products like hot rolled coils, sheets and strips at a much lower price, thereby injuring the domestic industry. India's steel ministry, for its part, has proposed a 20 percent safeguard duty. However, on May 11, the Indian government deferred by two months its decision on whether or not to impose a safeguard duty on imported steel products.