India may export 17.3 million tonne iron ore in 2012-13, a far cry from the 61.8 million tonne export in the previous year and 120 million tonne in 2009-10, investment bank Barclays Capital said in a forecast.
Between Apr-Nov 2012, the country exported 15 million tonne ore, compared to 36 million tonne in the previous year. This is a decline of 62.3 per cent.
The fall in ore export is attributed to the poor mining activity resulting in lower availability of the mineral coupled with the hefty export duty levied by the government in order to discourage exports.
Industry body Federation of Indian Mineral Industries (FIMI) requested the government to reduce export duty on iron ore fines in Budget 2013-14 to five per cent.
The body feels that the export duty of 30 per cent on iron ore fines is a deterrent to the effective functioning of the Indian mining industry.
Union finance ministry imposed five per cent duty on the export of iron ore fines in 2009-10. This was raised to 20 per cent in 2010-11 and 30 per cent in 2011-12. Between February 2010 and March 2012, the railways increased freight nine times.
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