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The World Trade Organisation (WTO) has ruled against the US in a case filed by India over imposition of high import duties on Indian steel products.
Commerce Secretary Rajeev Kher said: “The ruling has been in our favour in the way ‘public body’ has been defined. There are smaller procedural issues where it is against us.”
As the US might appeal against the ruling, the impact on Indian steel companies such as Tata, Essar and Jindal will be clear only after the Appellate Body of the WTO gives its decision, a Commerce Ministry official told BusinessLine .
The panel also rejected some of the claims made by India in its complaint, which New Delhi, too, may appeal against, the official added.
Both countries have the right to appeal against the report within 60 days of its circulation.
Steel companies have been hit hard by countervailing duties (CVD), ranging from 18 per cent to 500 per cent, which the US has been imposing on carbon steel from India for the last one decade. This has reduced Indian exports of the product to almost zero.
The CVD, which is a levy to neutralise Government subsidies, have been imposed by the US on the ground that iron ore sourced by Indian steelmakers from public sector NMDC is supplied at subsidised rate because it is government-owned. In a case filed before the WTO in 2012, India rejected the claim and argued that NMDC always sells at the prevailing market prices which are determined by their exports to Japan and South Korea.
The WTO panel, in its judgment on July 14, rejected Washington’s argument that supply from state-owned iron ore and coal miners allowed Indian steel exporters, like Tatas, to be treated as public bodies.
In a statement posted by the US Trade Representative on its website, it claimed that the WTO panel had rejected most of the challenges brought by India against the US Department of Commerce’s case-specific determinations.
“The rejections include challenges to over 300 instances of the use of ‘facts available’, challenges to Commerce’s benchmark calculations… and Commerce’s inclusion of new subsidy programmes in countervailing duty review proceedings,” the statement said.
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