New Delhi. Union Steel Minister HD Kumaraswamy said the government is working to resolve issues related to steel imports. Kumaraswamy told ‘PTI-Bhasha’ on the sidelines of FICCI’s conference on ‘Electric Vehicles – Accelerating Transport: Capabilities and Imperatives’ that the industry has informed the ministry about this and the ministry is aware of the issue. “There are some issues,” he said. They (steel companies) say that substandard material is being imported from some countries. We are working to deal with this.
Domestic steel companies are increasingly raising concerns over increasing cheap steel imports from select countries, which is affecting their competitiveness. Dhruv Goyal, Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of market-intelligence and commodities consulting company ‘Bigmint’, said that in the first half of the financial year 2024-25, there has been an increase of about 50 percent in steel imports on an annual basis. China has the largest share in this.
“This surge is mainly due to increased steel exports from China due to lack of domestic demand,” he said. It is estimated that China’s exports will cross 100 million tonnes in 2024, which will be the highest in eight years.” Goyal said that apart from this, Vietnam has made important contributions to India. Exports from Vietnam benefit from free trade agreements, which exempt them from import duties. According to Bigmint data, India’s steel imports stood at 55.1 lakh tonnes in April-September 2024-25, up from 36.6 lakh tonnes in the same period a year ago. Imports from China increased from 10.2 lakh tonnes in the April-September period of financial year 2023-24 to 18.5 lakh tonnes in the same period this year.
