Steel Sector Needs financial Support from Govt : ICC

Steel Sector - Industry body Indian Chamber of Commerce (ICC) has said that faced with a difficult business environment in global as well as domestic market, including cheap imports, the steel sector has sought a financial package from the Government. As per reports, the steel sector is passing through a difficult phase due to factors such as unavailability of key steelmaking raw materials like ore in the absence of grant of leases and cancellation of coal blocks. Commenting on the issue, ICC Director General Rajeev Singh said, "Due to FTAs with Japan & Korea, steel is being imported at import duty of below 2.5 per cent which does not even take care of the higher interest costs and logistics costs including infrastructure bottlenecks." “Under the circumstances the margins of steel companies are not sufficient to service interest cost and loan repayment as they are running at low capacity,”