Government expands steel import restriction policy

The Ministry of Trade has expanded its steel import restriction policy to include more steel products in the list of products whose import procedure is tightly regulated in a bid to help protect domestic steel industry, Bisnis Indonesia reported on Monday.

The new policy is contained in the Minister of Trade Regulation No 82/M-DAG/PER/2016 issued on December 9, the paper said, where the list of steel products whose import procedure is tightly regulated has been expanded to 342 from 166 under the previous 2010 ministerial regulation, and 52 under the 2014 minister regulation.

The paper quoted Director of Import at the ministry, Veri Anggrijono as saying that the new regulation is also aimed at extending the import restriction policy on steel products until end of December 2019.

He said that the policy is aimed at helping to product domestic steel industry including against the massive inflow of cheaper steel products from China. (*)