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India's DGTR initiated the investigation under Rule 5 of the Customs Tariff (Identification, Assessment and Collection of Anti-Dumping Duty on Dumped Articles and for Determination of Injury) Rules 1995, read with Sections 9A, 9B and 9C of the Customs Tariff Act 1975.
Product under consideration (PUC): Hot Rolled Flat Products of Alloy or Non-Alloy Steel — width up to 2,100 mm, thickness up to 25 mm, not clad, plated or coated; stainless steel explicitly excluded. HS classifications: 7208, 7211, 7225, 7226. End-uses cover automotive body panels, oil and gas line pipes, cold-rolled substrate, pipe manufacturing, general engineering/fabrication, construction, and capital goods for cement, fertiliser, refinery, and earth-moving sectors.
Period of investigation (POI): January–December 2025. Injury investigation period: financial years ended March 2023, 2024 and 2025.
Petitioners: JSW Steel Ltd., JSW Vijayanagar Metallics Ltd. (a JSW group entity), and Jindal Steel Odisha Ltd. (an JSPL group entity). All three are major flat-product producers in India.
Prima-facie finding: DGTR determined that export prices from all three origins (China PR, Japan and Russia) are significantly below normal value, with dumping margins above the de-minimis threshold and significant for each origin. Domestic producers also alleged injury in the form of price undercutting and suppressed realisations on account of rising imports.
Market context: China's finished-steel exports to India roughly doubled in April 2026 to approximately 232,000 tonnes — China's highest export volume to India in at least two years and making it India's largest import source for that month. Japan has also ramped up HRC sales to India as US Section 232 pressures have redirected Japanese export flows toward emerging-market buyers. Russia's HRC exports to India have increased following the redirection of flows away from sanctioned Western markets.
This initiation is the latest in a systematic sequence of Indian steel trade-remedy actions since late 2025:
products (12 % → 11.5 % → 11 %; CN, VN, KR, JP) — 2025-12-30-india-steel-flat-products-safeguard-duty-final
— 2025-12-19-india-crno-electrical-steel-china-anti-dumping-duty
China — 2026-06-22-india-dgtr-crgo-amorphous-metal-antidumping-initiation
products from China, Japan and Russia.
The HRC initiation complements the existing safeguard duty (which is product-broad but rate-limited) by targeting specific dumping margins per country of origin. If DGTR issues preliminary findings and recommends provisional anti-dumping duties, CBIC would implement them via a separate customs notification within 30–60 days of the DGTR recommendation.
(Angul), and SAIL are the primary beneficiaries of any eventual anti-dumping duty. Tata Steel's India operations (Kalinganagar HRC) would also benefit.
Tata Motors, Mahindra) and pipe manufacturers (APL Apollo, Welspun Corp, Man Industries) that import HRC to manage domestic pricing would face higher landed costs if provisional or definitive duties are levied.
commodity traders have been actively sourcing discounted Russian HRC since 2022 Western sanctions. Anti-dumping duties on Russian HRC would constrain this arbitrage, potentially pushing Indian buyers back to domestic or South Korean supply.
Russian material, so the dumping margin determination for Japan will be watched closely to see whether DGTR issues a de-minimis finding (< 2 %) that would exclude Japan from final duties.
approximately 6–9 months from initiation: December 2026 – March 2027.
determination, potentially narrowing the final duty scope to CN and RU.
implementing notification — full cycle typically 12–18 months from initiation.
grades in a subsequent petition.