A war over steel imports has broken out yet again between the world’s two largest producer nations: China and India.
The Steel Authority of India Ltd. and JSW Steel & Essar Steel India filed a complaint with India’s Directorate General of Anti-Dumping and Allied Duties, seeking an anti-dumping investigation as well as the imposition of tariffs on steel imports from six countries. Soon thereafter, the DGAD said it had prima facie evidence of dumping of steel originating from China, Japan, Russia, Korea, Brazil and Indonesia.
Chinese Production vs. Indian Production
China is the world’s biggest steel producer, accounting for around 822 million tons a year. Driven largely by a fast track economy in the past quarter century, China’s steel output has grown by more than 12 times its size in the 80s. By comparison, the EU’s output fell by 12% while U.S. output has remained flat. Of late, China has found itself in the midst of dumping controversies involving many countries it sends exports to, including the U.S., the European Union and Australia.
The Indian probe’s purpose is to establish the “existence, degree and effect of dumping” by the six nations. If found to be true, it will then recommend a minimum amount of anti-dumping duties. The probe covers hot-rolled flat products of alloy or non-alloy steel in coils, as well as hot-rolled flat products of alloy or non-alloy steel not in coils. Most of these products are used in the the automotive, oil and gas line pipes/exploration, cold-rolling, pipe and tube manufacturing industries.
Trade between China and India has been growing, but individually, the two are polar opposites so far as global exports are concerned. India’s exports account for just 1.7% of world trade, compared with nearly 12% for China’s. China exported 112 million metric tons of steel in 2015, which was 25% more than India’s total production of steel. India produced 92 mmt of steel in its 2014-15 fiscal year, while it imported over 9.32 mmt of steel, of which, an estimated 30% came from China.
Meanwhile, on the other side of the globe in Belgium, international steel producing countries, too, called for urgent action to curb overproduction.
A joint statement from the U.S., Canada, the E.U., Japan, Mexico, South Korea, Switzerland and Turkey, called calls for “ongoing international dialogue” to remove “market-distorting policies.”
But China rejected suggestions that it subsidized its loss-making steel companies.
India has often used anti-dumping duties and also imposed safeguard duties due to such import surges.
A few days ago, the Indian government extended the safeguard duty on steel imports until March 2018, after having first imposed them in September 2015. There will be no safeguard duties on steel imported at or above the minimum import price (MIP) stipulated by the government.
Anti-Dumping or Countervailing Duties?
Both anti-dumping and countervailing duties try to rectify the same issue: low-priced imports. But the difference between the two is the real cause of the low price.
Anti-dumping duties are used to tackle “dumping,” a legal definition for imports whose price is lower than their production cost. An exporter sets steel prices lower than production costs and floods other markets with such steel products. If a Chinese producer spends $120 per mt to make cold-rolled steel, and then sells it in the Indian market for $90 mt, while his Indian counterparts are selling their produce for $110, then these imports are based on a predatory pricing model that is either indirectly subsidized in the originating country, or takes advantage of a lower-valued currency and production costs back home.
On the other hand, countervailing duties seek to counter low prices that are an outcome of direct subsidies. The Chinese government, like some others, offers subsidies on exports in the form of tax breaks. As a result, exporters can offer lower prices than domestic producers. Countervailing duties level the playing field by negating the advantage of direct government sponsorship by increasing import tariffs to level the playing field.
Such duties are allowed by the World Trade Organization under the General Agreement on Trade and Tariffs (GATT) but only if dumping is established. Anti-dumping duties have to be removed if the margin between the domestic price and imported price goes below 2%, or when the imports of product from a country account for less than 3% of total imports of the product.
Also, the WTO says safeguard and anti-dumping duties cannot be country specific. So, if India or the U.S. imposes duties on imports from China, the latter can also impose duties on imports from those two nations.
This is what China is now pointing out to India. A few days ago, the world’s top steel maker asked India not to resort to “trade protection measures” and to “strictly follow” WTO rules while investigating cases of dumping by Chinese iron and steel exporters. Steel overcapacity is a worldwide problem which requires a joint effort from all countries, an unnamed Chinese official was quoted as saying by the official Xinhua news agency.