New Delhi : Ministries of Commerce and Steel are close to finalising the minimum import price of about 30-35 steel products, which is likely to be announced this week. The government wants to fix a minimum price for the in-bound shipment of certain steel products in a bid to check cheap imports from countries such as China, Japan, South Korea and Russia, which are adversely impacting domestic industry and can jeopardise billions of dollars of investment that the steel companies have made for capacity expansion. Ministries of Commerce and Steel, which are discussing the matter, have proposed a floor price for over 30 products below which imports into the country would not be allowed, sources told PTI.
Steel companies have taken huge loans for capacity expansion and are under severe stress as cheap imports are eating into their domestic share, a senior government official said.
Public sector banks are saddled with gross non-performing assets (NPAs) of around Rs 2.67 lakh crore at the end of March 2015. Gross NPA of the all banks was about Rs 3.09 lakh crore during the same period.
The steel sector is a major contributor to the NPA or bad loan woes of the public sector banks.
Last week, the government has imposed anti-dumping duty of up to 57.39 per cent on import of certain stainless steel products.
