The Steel Ministry has suggested its commerce counterpart to bring certain changes in norms used for imposing anti-dumping duties with a view to making them more effective for protecting domestic players from cheap imports, sources said.

The Government has imposed anti-dumping duty on several steel products from countries including China to guard domestic manufacturers from cheap imports. However, in certain cases, the imposition of duties was not able to contain dumping of products and the government had to initiate anti-circumventi on investigations.

The ministry has also flagged issues related to impact of free trade agreements being signed by India with its trading partners, including Japan and South Korea, sources said. Steel industry wants the Commerce Ministry to exclude steel from the purview of the proposed mega free trade pact - RCEP. China is a part of this agreement and the industry is of the view that cut in customs duties on steel would lead to flooding of products into India from the neighbouring country, significantly impacting domestic manufacturing. The Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) bloc comprises 10 Asean group members (Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Malaysia, Myanmar, Singapore, Thailand, the Philippines, Laos and Vietnam) and their six FTA partners - India, China, Japan, South Korea, Australia and New Zealand.