India slaps anti-dumping duty on Vietnamese steel—but the hit may be soft
India’s new anti-dumping duty on Vietnamese hot-rolled coils aims to protect local producers, but importers are already bypassing tariffs through semi-finished steel shipments.
To protect domestic steelmakers, the finance ministry has imposed anti-dumping duties on specific Vietnamese steel products for five years.
Acting on the directorate general of trade remedies’ (DGTR) recommendation, the government has levied a duty of $121.5 per tonne on hot-rolled flat products of alloy and non-alloy steel from Vietnam.
However, according to experts the impact of the tariffs will be minimal.
The duty on hot-rolled coils (HRC) is unlikely to impact the market immediately, as there were no imports of HRC from Vietnam recorded in the first half of FY26, said Dhruv Goel, chief executive officer of Big Mint, a market intelligence firm.
“Instead, importers are bringing in more semi-finished steel like billets and slabs, which are later converted into HRC. Since these imports don’t attract any duty, they serve as an indirect route to bring in cheaper material, putting pressure on domestic steel prices," said Goel.
A senior executive at one of India’s top five steelmakers, requesting anonymity, said the government’s action “falls short of what’s needed."
This assumes significance as India’s steel industry continues to battle price pressures from domestic oversupply and cheap overseas inflows. Despite multiple tariff walls, importers are exploiting gaps by routing semi-finished steel that faces no duty.
The new levy may plug one leak but leaves several open. Industry wants India to step up on protectionism to ensure improvement in domestic prices.
Rising semi imports
Vietnamese HRC imports made up 11% of India’s HRC inflows last year, falling to 0.45 million tonnes (mt) in FY25 from 0.62 mt in FY24, according to Big Mint. The fall was after the expiry of Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) certification for Vietnamese mills, said Goel.
But semi-finished steel imports have surged—from 0.17 million tonnes in FY25 to 0.49 million tonnes in the first half of FY26, as per Big Mint data.
According to the Steel Ministry, India imported $242 million worth of semi steel products from Vietnam between April and September—an 887% jump year-on-year. The government is yet to come out with numbers on volumes.
“More protectionist measures are required as India remains vulnerable to cheaper imports and depressed prices," the executive said.
“Globally, protectionist measures range between 25–50%, while in India they are less than 15%. Even the anti-dumping duty on Vietnam covers only one company (Hoa Phat) and one product category (hot-rolled coils). Other importers, such as MRS Steel—a Vietnam-based distributor bringing in semi-finished products—are outside the duty’s scope.", he added.
The big picture
Hot-rolled coils are used to make pipes, tubes, automobiles, and construction materials, while billets and slabs are semi-finished steel products that are further processed to produce finished items like bars and sheets.
In an earlier interview with Mint, JSW Steel’s chief executive officer and managing director Jayant Acharya had mentioned how importers were finding loopholes in a separate 12% safeguard duty imposed on steel imports this April, and one of the work arounds was buying semi-finished steel, which doesn’t attract the safeguard duty, and then processing it further domestically.
Apart from Vietnam, India’s biggest steel suppliers include South Korea, Japan, and China. India produced 146.56 million tonnes of finished steel in FY25, of which 54.12 million tonnes was HRC.
Consumption outpaced production at 152 million tonnes of finished steel, including 56.90 million tonnes of HRC, according to the steel ministry. India imported 9.55 million tonnes during the same period. For the first half of FY26, India produced 78.5 million tonnes of finished steel and consumption was 78.6 million tonnes. Imports stood at 3.4 million tonnes, of which a third is HRC, while exports were at 2.8 million tonnes.
India has previously imposed similar anti-dumping tariffs on seamless tubes and pipes, stainless steel pipes, and electro-galvanised steel from countries including China, Korea, Japan, Singapore, Vietnam, and Thailand, as per a Rajya Sabha submission by Union steel minister H.D. Kumaraswamy on 12 August.
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