Govt Imposes 12% Safeguard Duty on Select Steel Imports

The central government on Monday imposed a 12% safeguard duty on the import of certain non-alloy and alloy steel flat products to shield the Indian steel sector from the adverse impact of surge in imports.

The safeguard duty will be effective for 200 days from the date of publication of the notification i.e., April 21, the Department of Revenue said in a notification. The duty will be “payable in Indian currency”, the notification said.

This will provide relief to domestic steel producers, especially small and medium-scale enterprises, who have faced pressure from rising imports, the Minister for Steel and Heavy Industries, HD Kumaraswamy said in a release. “The safeguard duty will help restore market stability and reinforce the confidence of the domestic industry,” he added.

The decision to impose the duty follows a recommendation by the commerce ministry’s investigation arm Directorate General of Trade Remedies. Last month, the DGTR suggested to impose 12% provisional safeguard duty. The probe showed that there is a recent, sudden and harp increase in the imports of these products into India, causing and threatening to cause serious injury to the domestic producers.

The DGTR conducted these investigations in response to a complaint from the Indian Steel Association on behalf of its members. Imports of the products under consideration almost tripled to 6.612 milliion tonnes during the period of investigation (October 2023 to September 2024, and the three preceding financial years - 2021-24) from 2.293 million tonnes during 2021-22, the DGTR found.

However, the government has exempted developing countries, except China and Vietnam, from the proposed duty. The government has set the import prices between $675 per tonne to $964 per tonne for the five steel product categories and any shipment imported below these import prices would attract the safeguard duty, according to the notification said. And the said product categories, if imported into India at or above the specified import price on CIF (cost insurance freight) basis, shall not be exposed to the safeguard duty.