India’s commerce ministry has recommended anti-dumping duties ranging from $180/tonne to $306/t on some hot rolled 304 stainless flat steel imports from China, Malaysia and South Korea. This is in order to protect local industry, Kallanish learns from the ministry.

This comes after a dumping investigation into the period of April 2012-June 2013 (POI) after Jindal Stainless filed in March 2014 a request for a probe. The periods 2009/10 (base year), 2010/11 and 2011/12 were also looked at. The investigation found that while total imports of these products increased 50% till 2011/12 from the base year, imports from the subject countries surged 350%. However, they declined marginally during the POI. Imports from China alone comprised 70% of total imports during the POI.

“While the demand of the subject goods in the domestic market has increased by about 17% in the POI compared to the base year, the market share of the dumped imports from the subject countries in domestic demand has increased from about 10% in the base year to about 28%,” the ministry says. “This has prevented the domestic industry to improve its sales volume in the domestic market."

“The decline in the selling price of the domestic industry in the POI corroborates with the decline in landed prices of dumped imports from the subject countries,” it adds. “This indicates that the dumped imports are preventing the domestic industry to realize remunerative prices thereby significantly suppressing prices of the domestic industry”.

The duties, set to be implemented at the start of April, will apply to 304 grade stainless flat steel in thicknesses of 1.2-10.5mm for coils and 3-105mm for plates and sheets, and for all widths up to 1650mm. India consumes about 1 million tonnes/year of this type of stainless steel.

Last November the Indian Stainless Steel Development Association said capacity utilisation at Indian stainless steel mills had declined to 55% due to cheap imports from China and other countries with which India has a free trade agreement. This figure was 65-70% in November 2013.