FinMin asked to consider imposing customs duty on Chinese stainless steel

Subject : Economy

Section: External sector

Concept :

The Ministry of Steel has written to the Finance Ministry asking it to look at the possibility of levying customs duty on Chinese stainless steel shipments coming into India.
Such a duty will benefit the domestic stainless steel industry which has been badly hit by such imports and is “facing low capacity utilisation”.
The import of stainless steel from China increased from about 20 per cent to about 60 per cent of overall imports into the country.
The DGTR has, in the sunset clause review, recommended the continuation of customs duty on stainless steel imports from China in April 2023.
Sunset clause is a clause or provision in a legislation, rule, or legislation that states the law will expire after a certain date unless it is renewed by legislative action. The law/statute is also referred to as ‘periodic review’.

About DGTR

The Directorate General of Trade Remedies (DGTR) (earlier known as DGAD) was formed in 2018 as an integrated single window agency for providing comprehensive and swift trade defence mechanism in India.
It is a single national entity dealing with all kinds of Trade Remedial measures (anti-dumping, countervailing, safeguard).
Previous Mechanism: Earlier, the Directorate General of Anti-dumping and Allied Duties (DGAD) dealt with anti-dumping and CVD cases, Directorate General of Safeguards (DGS) dealt with safeguard measures and DGFT dealt with quantitative restriction (QR) safeguards.
The DGTR brings DGAD, DGS and Safeguards (QR) functions of DGFT into its fold by merging them into one single national entity.
It also provides trade defense support to our domestic industry and exporters in dealing with increasing instances of trade remedy investigations instituted against them by other countries.
DGTR provides a level playing field to the domestic industry against the adverse impact of the unfair trade practices like dumping and subsidies from any exporting country.
For this it uses Trade Remedial methods under relevant framework of WTO arrangements, Customs Tariff Act & Rules and other relevant laws and International agreements, in a transparent and time bound manner.
DGTR functions as an attached office of Department of Commerce, Ministry of Commerce and Industry.