New Delhi: To help domestic steel industry become competitive, the government needs to bring down iron ore prices by 25 percent, industry body Assocham said on Wednesday.
In a letter written to Union Steel and Mines Minister Narendra Singh Tomar, Assocham said, "Due to drop in platts iron ore index China, Japan and Korea have become more competitive and are exporting steel to India at throwaway prices thereby creating huge problem for the domestic steel industry."
Assocham secretary general DS Rawat said, "India's leading iron ore producer NMDC is charging 25 percent higher prices as compared to other iron ore miners based in Odisha which is adversely impacting the domestic steel sector."
The letter further said, though NMDC has reduced prices of iron ore lump and fines which are in line with those prevailing both in Odisha and international market, however the state-run miner is still charging much higher prices.
State-run NMDC which has been reducing iron-ore prices since February, but kept the April prices unchanged hoping for a spike in demand.
The company charges Rs 3,250 a tonne for lump ore and Rs 2,460 a tonne for fines.
With declining iron-ore prices and mining ban in mineral rich states, India which earlier used to be a world's third largest supplier of iron ore, saw jump of manifold in imports to touch a record 15 million tonnes in 2014-15.
In 2013-14, the imports stood at a mere 3.2 lakh tonne. On the other hand, exports were recorded at 4.5 mt during the last fiscal.
