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MUMBAI, March 8

NOTWITHSTANDING the exemption from the additional tariffs on export to the US, little benefit is seen accruing to the Indian steel industry.

The " safeguard'' tariffs of up to 30 per cent, effective March 20 and in place for three years, do not cover Canada, Mexico and a number of developing countries. Steel industry officials confirmed today that India features in the exempted list.

According to Mr B. Muthuraman, Managing Director, Tata Steel, the only Indian product not excluded from tariffs is carbon flange. "Over the last few months, our Ministry of Steel as well as the Indian Steel Alliance have been making repeated representations to the US Department of Commerce and their efforts have borne fruit,'' he said in a statement.

But that does not bring relief from the earlier imposed anti-dumping duties on Indian steel, following which the country's steel makers had considerably reduced exposure to the US market. In fact, Mr Muthuraman himself points out that India's exemption could be courtesy its small export to the US.

"The existing anti-dumping duties already act as deterrent to exports. There won't be much benefit by being part of the exempted list,'' a senior industry official familiar with the negotiations said. While exports of hot rolled (HR) coils from India to the US attract an anti-dumping duty of 30-42 per cent, cut-to-length plates are hit by an anti-dumping duty of 87 per cent. (Steel Authority of India is an exporter of cut-to-length plates.) Despite the export of cold rolled (CR) coils being small, anti-dumping investigations on CR products includes shipments from India too, the official said.

Consequently, the spectre of relative advantage to Indian steel exports as it merits only anti-dumping duty in the US and none of the additional tariff, did not arise, he pointed out.

However, there would be continued competence in the export of galvanised steel and carbon steel tubes to the US, as these products never earned the original anti-dumping duties, he said.

Jindal Iron and Steel Company (Jisco) has been exporting galvanised steel to the US while Lloyd Steel and Zenith have been exporting carbon steel tubes.

The US decision to keep India out of Wednesday's tariff list is therefore doubly good for these companies. Jisco accounts for 90 per cent of India's galvanised steel exports to the US.

According to Mr J. Mehra, Managing Director, Essar Steel, the US decision on exempting India, along with proposals in the recent Union Budget increasing import duty on shipping scrap, will enable the steel market to become more stable in terms of prices. "We welcome the decision of the US to exclude India from the purview of levy of safeguard duty on all steel products,'' he said.

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