Mr PK Rastogi federal steel secretary in a television channel CNBC TV18 said that steel prices should not increase in India as raw material prices have fallen.
The steel secretary said that "The prices of the input material has gone down, that includes iron ore and coking coal, I do not think it is justifiable the steep price should go up in India."
Mr Rastogi, during an interview with CNBC - TV 18, while replying to “You mentioned that any hike in steel prices would be completely unjustified. Have you indicated that point of view to the steel companies, are you looking at or considering perhaps strict action if indeed they do go ahead and hike prices?” answered that “There is no control on the prices of steel and we were not finding also that there is some increase in the steel prices taking place and there will be minor variations sometimes it goes up or down by INR 500 per tonne to INR 1000 per tonne depending upon demand or supply of a particular product. But so far there has not been a case that the price of steel is going up.”
In answer to another related question “We were speaking to JSW Steel yesterday and they made the point that Baosteel has raised prices in China, global prices have moved up and there is some justification to Indian steel prices moving up as well, would you agree with that or not?” Mr Rastogi said that “We will not agree with that. There is no case of increasing the price in the country. In fact, the international price is lower than the cost of production in India. So some sort of a case was there for giving some protection for the import but if the international price goes up then one will have to think what sort of protection has to be given to the steel industry because the prices of the input material have gone down, that is the coking coal and iron ore. I don’t think it is justifiable that the price of steel should go up in India.”
Source : Reuters & CNV TV 18