India looks at “safeguarding” steel tax
Marketplace All-in-One
Marketplace
4.8 • 1.3K Ratings
🗓️ 19 March 2025
⏱️ 8 minutes
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Summary
From the BBC World Service: India’s government is planning a temporary 12% duty on finished steel imports to protect the domestic market, as exporters around the globe grapple with U.S. steel and aluminum tariffs. Also, a Grammy-nominated band is drumming up demand for merch from a little-known English soccer team. And later, an Italian newspaper says it’s become the first in the world to offer a daily edition produced by artificial intelligence.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | The world's second biggest steelmaker is planning trade tariffs. Live from the UK, this is the Marketplace Morning Report from the BBC World Service. In Fuliana Byrne, I'm Sarah Rogers. Good morning. First to India's steel industry and plans to impose a 12% tax on most imports of the metal. It comes as imports of Finnish steel from China, South Korea and Japan recently |
| 0:21.7 | hit a record high. The BBC's Aachena Shukler joins Marketplace from Mumbai. Hi, Arjuna. |
| 0:27.2 | Hi, Sarah. So these types of measures are known as safeguarding duties, aren't they? Just tell us a bit |
| 0:32.6 | more about what that means. Safeguarding duties are basically import taxes that are levied on certain items to avoid |
| 0:41.1 | dumping of excess of those products and safeguarding the domestic manufacturers and the domestic |
| 0:47.9 | market. So in this case, the Indian government is suggesting that they would look at a 12% tax on imported steel, |
| 0:57.1 | largely toward off risks of a glut in the domestic market. |
| 1:00.8 | But this is a temporary measure, isn't it? |
| 1:02.8 | The government is suggesting this as a temporary measure for 200 days, |
| 1:06.5 | and it is still a suggestion at the moment. |
| 1:08.7 | The government has asked for consultation and feedback from the industry and could go ahead with the safeguarding duty after 30 days. |
| 1:15.8 | But this would at least keep the domestic industry intact and protected for that period and could manage the domestic steel prices and help the domestic manufacturers work better on their earnings |
| 1:29.3 | and margins. |
| 1:30.1 | How does what India is doing just fit into the wider global picture then when it comes to steel? |
| 1:36.3 | Well, India is the second largest producer of crude steel, but it does import a lot of finished |
| 1:42.8 | steel products. Not a lot of India's crude steel products |
| 1:46.9 | are exported to the US market. So from that perspective, India is kind of shielded as far as |
| 1:52.9 | Trump's sweeping tariffs on steel imports. But remember, Trump's tariffs were also on |
| 1:58.0 | aluminium imports and that is where Indian manufacturers get |
| 2:01.5 | hit because India exports about a billion dollars worth of aluminum to the United States, |
| 2:07.2 | and that industry is working around to deal with the impact of these tariffs. |
| 2:12.1 | Atanas Shakler, thanks so much for joining us on Marketplace. |
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