The Indian Department of Commerce on Monday announced that it has decided to impose anti-dumping duties on hot-rolled steel sheets produced by South Korean steelmakers a few days after a similar action from the United States.

According to multiple foreign media reports on Tuesday, the Indian commerce department finalized punitive anti-dumping duties on hot-rolled steel sheet imports from Korea, China, Japan, Russia, Brazil, and Indonesia for six months.

The Indian commerce department claimed imports selling below normal prices have hurt domestic industry. Korean steelmakers Posco and Hyundai Steel Co. won’t be hurt by the move as they mostly export high-end products.

Last year, Korea exported a total of 1.49 million tons of hot-rolled steel sheets, worth $576 million, to India. The export volume to India in the first half of this year sank to 498,000 tons of steel sheets, worth $208 million, after the Indian government imposed minimum import control prices on foreign steel products from February.

Earlier this month, the U.S. Department of Commerce also announced anti-dumping duties of up to 61 percent on Korean steel makers including Posco.

Amid protectionist wave on the trade front, South Korean companies were implicated with 179 anti-import cases from 31 countries, according to the Korea International Trade Association. Currently, 132 are under regulation and 47 under review.

Of them, anti-dumping cases totaled 125, followed by 47 safeguards and seven anti-dumping and anti-subsidy actions. India had been most protective with 32 cases, followed by 23 in the United States, and 11 each from China and Brazil. Turkey and Indonesia each found fault with Korean imports in 10 cases.

So far this year, Korean imports are implicated in six anti-dumping charges from India, four from the U.S., and two each from Taiwan, Malaysia, Vietnam, and Turkey.

By Yoon Jin-ho

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