Engineering Exports Promotion Council against MIP for steel import

Engineering Exports Promotion Council (EEPC) is strictly against the government’s move to restrict steel imports by way of fixing Minimum Import Price (MIP) stating that if the MIP is imposed, it would be a complete destruction of the medium and small scale engineering sector. It further said that MIP would significantly push the import price of a variety of steel products.

EEPC in its statement has said that “There is no justification for the government to help handful of big steel makers, by way of fixing MIP, at the cost of millions of SME export firms which will be forced to pay much higher price for their raw material.”

The government is considering imposing a minimum import price for about a dozen steel products. The move is aimed at checking cheap imports, especially from surplus producers like China, Japan and South Korea. This is being done to protect the handful of primary steel producers on the grounds that they are over-leveraged and their bank loans could become NPAs. In the first eight months of the current fiscal the engineering exports, largest contributor in the country's export basket, have fallen by over 14 per cent to $39.85 billion.