On 7 September 2015 Directorate General of Safeguard (DGS) of India initiated a safeguard investigation on “hot-rolled flat products of non-alloy and other alloy Steel in coils of a width of 600 mm or more” imported into India based on application filed by M/S Steel Authority of India Limited; M/S Essar Steel India Limited, and M/S JSW Steel Limited through M/S Lakshmi Kumaran & Sridharan Attorneys.
The Products Under Consideration are classified under Chapter 72 of the Customs Tariff Act, 1975, under tariff heading 7208 and tariff item 7225.30.90. The Period of investigation in this case has been taken from 2013-14 to 2015-16.
The import volume ofHot Rolled Flat products have shown an increasing in absolute terms during the period as shown in table below:
|
Financial Year |
Total Imports (MT) |
All India Production (MT) |
Import with respect to all India production (%) |
|
2013-14 |
12,92,099 |
25,510,777 |
5 |
|
2014-15 |
2,540,114 |
26,395,795 |
10 |
|
2015-16(Q1) |
844,840 |
66,46,258 |
|
|
2015-16(A) |
3,379,360 |
26,585,032 |
13 |
The DGS recommends to impose Safeguard duty at the rate of 20% for 200 days which is considered to be minimum required to protect domestic industry.