ISSDA comes out strongly against criticism about excessive protection to steel companies

KOLKATA: Terming it as deliberate campaign of misinformation by industry bodies like Plant and Process Manufacturing Association of India (PPMAI), N C Mathur, president-ISSDA said in a statement: “Certain vested interests are spreading false rumours regarding the so called “excessive protectionism” to steel companies.” Stainless steel flat products are completely outside the ambit of Minimum Import Price (MIP) and there are currently no safeguard measures in place on stainless steel flat products, he pointed out. ISSDA said domestic stainless steel industry is producing all possible grades for wide ranging applications and any allegation regarding non-availability of commonly used grades is either based on complete ignorance of facts or is being done with a deliberate intent to malign the domestic industry.

The ISSDA retaliation comes in the wake of the PPMAI stance. “Capital Goods business is based on stainless steel products specified as per international standards only. Higher import duty or any other trade barrier on these industrial grade products will hurt the process and plant industry which is manufacturing critical high end products, PPMAI which has members like Larsen & Toubro (L&T), Godrej, Thermax, Toyo Engineering, ThyssenKrupp Industrial Solutions (India) among others had said.

ISSDA also stated as a result of repetitive dumping being indulged in by countries having surplus capacity, a large number of small scale units in the unorganized sector had closed down. ISSDA members include over 170 companies which comprises of manufacturers and major users of stainless steel with major players like Steel Authority of India Limited, Jindal Stainless Limited, BRG Iron and Steel, Sunflag Iron and Steel, Mukand Corp, Shah Alloys and Viraj Profiles among others.