Providing major relief to domestic players from below-cost imports, India has imposed anti-dumping duty on cold-rolled from Korea, Japan, China and Ukraine.

The government last week took similar measures on 47 hot-rolled from half-a-dozen nations, including China, Japan, Korea, Russia and Indonesia.

Cold rolled flat would attract an anti- dumping duty equivalent to the difference between the landed value of steel products and USD 576 per tonne, it said.

Essar Steel India, Steel Authority of India, JSW Steel Ltd and JSW Steel Coated Products had jointly filed the application for a dumping probe. The application was also supported by Bhushan Steel Ltd. Tata Steel which also manufactures cold rolled steel products.

The commerce ministry's dumping investigation arm -- Directorate General of Anti-Dumping and Allied Duties (DGAD) -- concluded that these items were dumped in India resulting in material injury to domestic industry.

Countries initiate an anti-dumping probe to determine if the domestic industry has been hurt by the flooding of below-cost import. As a counter-measure, they come up with duties under the multi-lateral WTO regime.

Anti-dumping steps are not a measure to restrict imports or cause an unjustified increase in the cost of products, but rather it is taken to ensure fair trade and provide a level-playing field to the domestic industry.