October 08, 2008

Indian government may link steel export to input imports

It is reported that Indian government is considering a request from steel producers to relax norms for levying export duty on steel.

A delegation of secondary producers, pipe makers and galvanizers met Mr RS Pandey steel secretary of India on May 14th 2008 and apprized him of the effect of recent announcement of price cut by INR 4000 per tonne by domestic HR makers, demand supply scenario for galvanized and pipes in India and effect of export tax on their business.

Steel makers said that there is overcapacity in cold rolled coils and other flat products and the domestic industry should be allowed to export flat products after meeting domestic demand. The Industry made a request to withdraw export tax with retrospective effect and said that export tax should not be levied on exports against advance license.

Mr Pandey informed the delegation that “The price reduction given by steel producers is only for domestic sales. And if any secondary producer is exporting their product, the price to the extent of export will be charged accordingly. If you are buying at domestic price than you should not be allowed to export. Whatever you buy domestically you must sale in domestic market.”

Mr Pandey has asked industry to submit production, raw material and sales data for year 2007-08 and plan for 2008-09.

The meeting was attended by Mr NR Dash director in the ministry of steel, Mr Vinod Mittal MD of Ispat Industries Limited, Mr Shankar Batra of Bhushan Steel Limited, Mr Santosh Sahara chairman of National Steel, Mr B Goenka chairman of Welspun, Mr RV Sridhar of Shree Precoated Steel Limited, Mr Naresh Singhal of Surya Roshni Limited, Mr HK khanna of Maharashtra Seamless, Mr.Pankaj Nigam of Man Industries and Mr SC Mathur of CORSMA.