Union Government imposes safeguard duty on certain steel imports

The Union Government has imposed safeguard duty on import of certain steel products to protect domestic manufacturers from cheap in-bound shipments.
It was imposed by the Revenue Department on steel products like hot rolled flat sheets and plates of alloy (excluding hot rolled flat products in coil form) or non-alloy steel.
Key Facts

• The effective duty rate will be calculated after deducting value of goods and the anti-dumping duty payable when import price is below $504 per tonne.
• The duty arrived at would be 10% in the first year and will gradually reduce to 8% by 2018 and 6% by 2019.

Background
The Director General (Safeguard), in his final findings in August 2016 had found that increased imports of these steel products into India have caused serious injury to the domestic producers. Thereby it was necessary to impose safeguard duty on imports of steel products into India. Earlier, India had imposed anti-dumping duty on certain cold-rolled flat steel products from four nations including China and South Korea.
What is Safeguard Duty?
The safeguard duty is tariff barrier imposed by government on the commodities to ensure that imports in excessive quantities do not harm the domestic industry. It is temporary measure undertaken by government in defence of the domestic industry which is harmed or has potential threat getting hared due to sudden cheap surge in imports.

Month: Current Affairs - November, 2016