
The Director General (Safeguards) India has decided in favour of holding a Public Hearing before any decision is taken regarding imposition of safeguard duty on unwrought aluminium imports from overseas markets to protect domestic manufacturers. Accordingly, the Revenue department will hold the meeting later this month.
"It has been decided by the Director General (Safeguards) to hold a Public Hearing in the safeguard investigation concerning increased imports of 'Unwrought Aluminium (Aluminium not alloyed and Aluminium alloys)' into India on September 29, 2016," the Directorate General of Safeguards (DGS) said.
On the basis of preliminary findings, DGS agreed on the fact that increased imports of aluminium products from countries such as the UAE, Malaysia, Russia, South Africa, Oman, Qatar, Bahrain and Thailand had caused "serious injury and threat of serious injury" to the Indian primary aluminium industry. As a result, even the large-scale producers incurred heavy financial losses in financial year 2015-16, it had said while recommending preliminary safeguard duty on the imports for 200 days in April this year. At that time, DGS had said that a public hearing will be held "before making a final determination".
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Earlier, all Indian aluminium producers namely, Hindalco Industries, Vedanta Ltd-Aluminium and Power and Bharat Aluminium Company, under the Aluminium Association of India (AAI) had approached DGS for considering imposition of safeguard duty on the imports of unwrought aluminium.
Unwrought aluminium imports in India soared 78 per cent from 2,42,533 million tonnes in 2011-12 to 4,32,370 million tonnes during 2015-16 (annualised). In between 2014-15 to 2015-16, specifically, the increase has been quite sharp and substantial, DGS said.
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