The Ministry of Mines has said that only the Commerce Ministry and the Department of Revenue can take a decision on reducing export duty on iron ore.

Anup Pujari, Secretary, Ministry of Mines, told BusinessLine , “We are only concerned with the mining and production aspects. The export duty issue will have to be resolved by the Commerce Ministry and Department of Revenue, Ministry of Finance.”

This will come as a set back for the industry players who were seeking the nodal Ministry’s intervention in resolving the issue. Miners have been increasingly asking for a cut in export duty on iron ore as they are losing competitiveness with global prices falling to around $80 per tonne.

The current export duty is 30 per cent on ad valorem. When the duty was imposed in 2012, international prices of iron ore were as high as $175 per tonne.

In a recent interaction with BusinessLine , Tom Albanese, Chief Executive Officer, Vedanta Resources Plc, said that the high export duty had resulted in India losing market to Australia and Brazil globally which would be hard to regain.

Indian iron ore exports have declined to 14.42 million tonnes in 2013-14 from 117.37 million tonnes in 2009-10. With India expected to export only around 8-9 million tonne of iron ore, the country is set to become a net importer of the mineral as imports are set to touch 15 million tonnes.

The Federation of Indian Mineral Industries (FIMI) has put forward its demand to the new Government and the officials for reducing the export duty on iron ore. FIMI officials said that till now there has been no positive movement on the export duty for iron ore.

Vedanta Group-owned Sesa Sterlite has also asked for a reduction in iron ore export duty. The company’s iron ore mining operations are mainly based in Goa, a State which till 2009-10 was a major exporter of the mineral.

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