The steel minister will be accompanied by steel secretary Ashok Kumar Basu and chief executives of key steel producers like the Steel Authority of India Limited (SAIL), Tata Steel, the Rashtriya Ispat Nigam Limited (RINL), Essar Steel and Mukand Limited. The steel delegation to the commerce ministry is expected to thrash out policy glitches that are deterring exports.

Exports has been the only silver lining in the otherwise dull trade in steel in the last two years. Last year, iron and steel exports brought home foreign exchange worth Rs 2,850 crore, which was not only an all-time high for the industry, but also more than what big export earners like electronics and man-made fabrics had fetched for the country.

In terms of volume, the home industry sold3.4 million tonnes of iron and steel abroad, which was 25 per cent higher than the previous year's exports of 2.7 million tonnes. Between April and June this year, the total iron and steel exports was marginally lower than in the first quarter of 1997-98.

Pig-iron exports dropped drastically by 36 per cent to 1.58 lakh tonnes between April and June this year, compared with a lakh tonne in the first quarter of last year. Pig-iron producers have been particularly hit by the Rs 1800 a tonne (interim) anti-dumping duty on metallurgical coke. The consequent hike in the cost of the imported raw material has robbed Indian pig iron of its competitive edge in the international market.

Exports of steel semis, like billets have plunged by 65 per cent, to 50,000 tonnes in the first three months of this year, compared with 1.45 lakh tonnes in the first quarter of last year. Only finished steel exports have actually grown in the first quarter of this year.

Between April and June, finished steel exports touched 4.25lakh tonnes, which was 21.42 per cent higher than in the first quarter of 1997-98, when the country exported merely 3.5 lakh tonnes of finished steel. The trend was healthy, said industry watchers, since it indicated that value-added exports were overtaking exports of semis and low-value items.

The steel ministry is obviously, not willing to take chances and is determined to pre-empt a dip in overseas steel sales this year. The steel ministry delegation is likely to press for some interim reliefs that could give home-made steel some advantage in the global marketplace.

The 4 per cent special and additional import duty, for instance, is applicable even for raw material imports that are entitled to duty concessions under the Duty Entitlement Passbook Scheme (DEPB). The duty reliefs granted to exporters are, therefore, getting crossed out by the new duty impositions. The steel ministry has already written to the union finance ministry about the duty anomaly.

The steel ministry also plans to seek an earlydisposal of anti-dumping cases. The ministry of commerce has, in its preliminary investigations, dismissed the anti-dumping charges brought by SAIL, Essar Steel and a host of other steel producers against hot-rolled (HR) coils imports from the CIS.

The commerce ministry has also not paid any attention to the steel ministry's pleas to reconsider an anti-dumping duty on metallurgical coke, which is a vital input for many steel and pig iron producers. The interim duty on metallurgical coke is still subject to revision and the case for an anti-dumping duty on hot rolled coils is also open to further investigation.

The issues may just be discussed once again during the interface with the commerce minister. The commerce ministry has reason to listen, because the dip in the overseas sales of steel is in tune with the overall drop in exports in the first two months of this year.

The 12 per cent drop in exports in April and May caused some nail-biting at the commerce ministry, which is banking on a 20 per centgrowth in exports this year.

Last year, the country's exports had merely grown by 2.6 per cent. Export earnings of $ 33.97 billion could not match the drain on foreign exchange from imports, which touched $ 40.77 billion during the fiscal.