India may levy duty as steel imports surge

India is being hit by a wave of steel from Japan and South Korea, a government document showed, as mills there have redirected supplies after US President Donald Trump slapped an import duty on the alloy earlier this year.

During the first quarter of the fiscal starting in April, India’s steel imports from South Korea rose 31 per cent from a year earlier, while those from Japan climbed 30 per cent, according to an internal document from the Ministry of Steel.

The flood of imports is so huge that the Centre is considering measures to control imports, Minister Chaudhary Birender Singh told Reuters. “The concern is there, of course, and if we are to take some measures, we will not hesitate on that account,” Singh said in an interview. Between April and June, India became a net importer of steel, with foreign supplies reaching 2.1 million tonnes, 15 per cent higher than a year earlier, according to the note.

With the increase, India has now surpassed the US as South Korea’s thirdlargest market for steel, according to data from the Korea Iron & Steel Association. India could look at imposing safeguards, said a senior government official. Under World Trade Organization rules, safeguards are temporary restrictions on imports of a product to protect a domestic industry. However, renewed government measures would take place despite the domestic steel industry being unable to meet the country’s demand for highend steel products, needed for railroads and structural steel used in construction projects.