Chromeni Steels Pvt Ltd — a Chinese joint-venture of Gujarat’s four business groups — welcomed the Budget proposals to rollback anti-dumping, and countervailing duties on imports of stainless steel products.
Based in China’s Zhejiang province, Tsingshan Industries had formed a JV with a group of business houses from Gujarat including Sunrise Group, Suncity Group, JP Iscon Group and VD Group to set up a cold rolled coils plant at Mundra in Gujarat.
Level playing field
“We, at Chromeni Steels, welcome the proposed revocation of anti-dumping duty (ADD) and countervailing duties (CVD) on the imports of flat products from certain countries. This decision will benefit thousands of downstream MSMEs, who have been suffering for months due to rampant raw material price increases and irregularities in supply,” said Pratik Shah, Director, Chromeni Steels. He added that revoking these ADD and CVD will now create a level playing field for the entire stainless steel sector, including the end-user industries.
Also read: Cut in duty to abet stainless steel imports
The provisional countervailing duty was imposed vide notification No. 02/2020-Cus (CVD) dated October 9, 2020 on flat rolled products of stainless steel originating in or exported from certain countries.
The company welcomed Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman’s decision to revoke anti-dumping duty on Cold-Rolled Flat Products of Stainless Steel of width 600mm to 1250mm and above 1250mm of non-bonafide usage originating in or exported from People’s Republic of China, Republic of Korea, European Union, South Africa, Taiwan, Thailand and United States of America upon its expiry.
Shah added that the revocation of ADD and CVD would bring much needed balance to the stainless steel prices, which had been artificially going up by as much as 40 per cent in past 6-8 months.
“Affordable barrier-free raw material will go a long way in protecting domestic downstream industry and saving thousands of jobs. Chromeni will now put its scaling up plan back on track and re-commit itself to catering to India’s rising stainless steel demand,” he said.
Chromeni Steel has production capacity of around 1 million tonnes per annum of cold rolled coils and looks to set up additional one million tonnes by 2022, apart from four million tonnes per annum of hot rolled coils capacities by 2025.