The minister said our steel exports to the US is barely 0.31 percent of our production, "yet we have approached the WTO regarding this and we hope something will happen through dialogue."

Amidst rising concerns over the US moves on exemptions on steel tariffs, Union steel minister Chaudhary Birender Singh on Tuesday said the government is not "jittery" about it and that government is taking appropriate steps, including talking to the World Trade Organisation to arrive at some solutions.

The minister said our steel exports to the US is barely 0.31 percent of our production, "yet we have approached the WTO regarding this and we hope something will happen through dialogue."

"We are not jittery about it, nor we are in a hurry to take any step. We are aware of the developments coming in from the US," Singh told reporters on the sidelines of the India Steel Expo 2019 here.

On March 8, 2018, US President Donald Trump had imposed a 25 percent tariff on steel and 10 percent on aluminium imports from countries like India, China, Japan, Korea, the EU and Mexico.

Earlier, addressing the gathering, steel secretary Binoy Kumar said the measures taken by the US, Canada and the EU were "unfair".

"One of our teams is already in Canada requesting them to reconsider their decision. At the same time we are in talks with the WTO as well," he said.

Singh further said despite the global scenario, the domestic industry has shown a robust performance, growing at 8.4 percent in steel consumption and 4.5 percent in production in the first nine months of FY19. This has ensured that that country overtook Japan to become the second largest alloy producer in the world.

"We took several measures such as imposing minimum import price and later the anti-dumping duty. Due to these steps, we have seen a turnaround in the steel industry. As per the National Steel Policy 2017, we've set a 300 million tonne production target by FY31 and we are on the track to achieve the same," he said.

The minister further said the initiatives like giving preference to domestic iron and steel products by the states and Centre as well as government agencies has given good results and the country has managed to save nearly Rs 8,000 crore on imports in less than two years.

He said the Rs 5.95-trillion budgetary allocation for infrastructure projects will drive the steel industry.

"Another decision is of applicability of BIS standards on steel products. Currently, 86 percent of the products are covered and our endeavour is to achieve 100 percent. This has given a level-playing field to both the integrated and secondary steel industries," Singh said.

On the concerns of rising steel imports, especially coking coal and some other raw materials, Singh said efforts are on to find alternatives for such products. "Nearly 80 percent of coking coal is imported along with some other raw materials for steel manufacturing. This is a drain on our forex reserves.

"To curtail imports, we are taking help from the Steel Research and Technology Mission, under which want to replace some of these materials. We are sure that we will be able to reduce our dependence on imports going forward," he said.

"To meet the 300-million tonne steel production target, we need investment of nearly Rs 8 trillion. Of this, 22-24 percent will be needed to purchase machinery for the new plants or where we are expanding the existing ones. Since, we will have to import such machines and we will end up losing on forex, we've invited global firms to partner with us for transfer of technology," he said.

The minister said government has recently signed Rs 42,000-crore worth agreements for technology transfer and FDI.