Indian Mines and Steel Ministry decides to hike import duty on finished steel products

Author: Paul Ploumis
22 Jan 2015 Last updated at 10:28:57 GMT
NEW DELHI (Scrap Monster): In a report, which was submitted to the Finance Minister Arun Jaitely, by the Steel and Mines Ministry's Narendra Singh Tomar, did not recommend to cut down the export duty on iron ore in order to secure long term raw material security for the domestic companies.

According to the sources, the budget proposal was sent to the Ministry of Finance last month. At the beginning of this week Tomar had clarified some issues regarding the budget proposals with Jaitely.  The import duty on finished steel products, soon to be hiked to 10 percent is at present 5 percent to 7.5 percent, and the governments plan to remove import tax on the raw material shipments will be a blessing for the local steel producers.

Domestic steel makers in the Country are tense regarding the squeeze in the margins, as the domestic market has highly subdued with the rise in import of the raw material and also the decline in export. This is mainly due to the increase in price of the raw material.