New Delhi: In line with falling global rates, JSW Steel announced cutting prices for the third time in as many months.
“We are reducing prices of HR Coil by Rs5,500 per tonne for November 2008 in line with prevailing international prices. This cut along with the 8-12% reduction in October 2008 amounts to an overall reduction by 25-30% compared to peak prices in the domestic market,” JSW Steel said in statement issued here late night.
Earlier in September also the company had slashed rates by upto Rs2,000 per tonne across all products.
The decision, in tune with declining international rates, comes at a time many Indian companies are trying to match the import parity price.
The international prices were corrected in the past two months by around 50% and the domestic prices have been reduced to counter the increasing imports into India, the statement said.
The reduction in prices comes at a time when the industry is demanding a 15% import duty on steel products to help the domestic industry and check dumping of cheaper alloy in the domestic market.
“To avoid entry of cheap imports of steel products into the country and to safeguard the interest of the growing Indian steel industry, there is an urgent need to impose appropriate tariff measures,” it added.
Financial crisis in the international markets has led to a slowdown in the global economy resulting into sluggish demand for steel products. This is triggering dumping of steel products into India as the import duties on steel were made nil when international prices were high, the statement said.
The company said that bottom lines of the steel makers are being hit due to the rising input pressure and several mills across the globe are cutting down production to tame the price rise amidst the slump in steel demand.
“This reduction of prices in domestic market is almost close to the marginal cost of production for several steel producers as the coal contracts were finalised at higher prices for the entire year. Several mills all across the world have announced production cuts which indicates bottoming out of steel prices,” the statement said.