'Hiked duty on bauxite, stainless steel to help Indian firms'

Chennai, July 10 (IANS) The hike in export duty on bauxite and the import duty on flat rolled products of stainless steel proposed by union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley is favourable for the domestic players, said a sectoral analyst.

"It augurs well for aluminium industry's capacity expansion plans as domestic ore availability will increase," said Venkatesan Subramanian, vice president and global leader, metals and minerals practice, Frost & Sullivan.

Presenting the budget proposals for 2014-15, Jaitley proposed to hike the export duty on bauxite to 20 percent from the current 10 percent.

The impact of the duty hike will be that exports would be curbed while the domestic supply would increase, benefiting the Indian aluminium companies.

Similarly, hike of import duty on flat rolled products of stainless steel by 2.5 percent to 7.5 percent will benefit the suppliers of Indian flat rolled products.