By Neha Arora and Amy Lv
NEW DELHI (Reuters) -India’s smaller steel mills plan to delay job cuts and other measures such as trimming output, executives said, after the government imposed a temporary tariff to protect local producers from a surge in cheap imports, chiefly from China.
On Monday, India, the world’s second-biggest producer of crude steel, imposed a 12% temporary tariff, or provisional safeguard duty, on some steel imports for 200 days.
The Directorate of General Remedies, which is still conducting its investigation, is expected to submit its final findings by August-September, following which the government will decide the rate and duration of the tariff, Steel Secretary Sandeep Poundrik said at a news conference on Tuesday.
“We have put the decision to cut jobs on hold and we will see how demand fares,” said Adarsh Garg, chairman and managing director at northern Indian state Punjab’s Jogindra Group.
“The industry was in losses and this duty might bring relief and the opportunity to raise prices,” Garg said.
In the western city of Pune, Enlight Metals was seeing an increased order flow from the early hours of Tuesday, director Vedant Goel said, adding that rising demand would help it retain external labour set to be removed due to cheaper imports.
New Delhi’s tariffs are primarily aimed at China, the second-biggest exporter of steel to India behind South Korea in 2024/25.
“There are various measures which the government is taking to ensure that domestic steel industry is not harmed by low-cost dumping,” Poundrik said.
Beijing’s shipments may slow, traders and analysts said.
“China’s steel exports to India in 2025 might return to a level seen three years ago, around 1 million tons, or a third of its exports to India last year,” said Xu Xiangchun, Beijing-based director of content at consultancy Mysteel.
India was a net importer of finished steel for a second straight year in 2024/25, with shipments reaching a nine-year high of 9.5 million metric tons, according to provisional government data.
Restricting import channels into India “will place increasing pressure on Chinese officials to move faster in mandating domestic steel production capacity reforms to balance excess supply with deteriorating local and global demand,” said Atilla Widnell, managing director at Navigate Commodities.
The industry is also set to increase production in India to meet growing demand, executives said.
“India has added 14 million tons of new steel capacity since January 2024, which when ramped up can meet the gap left by restricted imports,” said Shankhadeep Mukherjee, principal steel analyst at London-headquartered CRU Group.
“We also forecast that India will again become net exporter of steel in 2025, reclaiming a position last seen in 2022.”
(Reporting by Neha Arora in New Delhi and Amy Lv in Beijing; Additional reporting by Michele Pek and Joyce Lee; Editing by Jan Harvey and David Evans)
