Ministry proposes import tariff to protect steel products

The Ministry of Industry has proposed new import tariff to protect domestic steel industry against the massive flow of imported products, Bisnis Indonesia reported on Monday.

The paper quoted Director for Upstream Steel Sector Budi Irmawan as saying that the ministry has proposed to the Ministry of Finance?s Fiscal Policy Agency an average baseline tariff of more than 20 percent to protect local downstream steel products against imported products. He said that the ministry has yet to discuss the proposal with the fiscal agency.

He said that the protection tariff is also aimed to promote the use of local steel products in government infrastructure projects. (*)