JSW won’t import from China

JSW Group chairman Sajjan Jindal has been vocal about cutting trade links with China. For example, refractories for his company’s blast furnaces will come from Turkey and Brazil, “The steel industry’s 100% refractories come from China. One approach is to say that war will be fought by our soldiers, and my job is to make steel at a cheaper price by buying from China. But another view is — look at the $100 billion opportunities that Indian companies should tap. There will be some pain in the short run, said Jindal Directly and indirectly at JSW, there might be over a billion dollars of imports that come from China. And to curb that, the company has recently put a clause in all its purchase orders that specifies no materials should come from China. The focus is, no material should be imported from a country that is not friendly to India, specifically China and Pakistan. JSW, used to import around 100% of refractories from China and now it has already worked out an alternative supply though it will cost around 10-15% more.