Even so, not even the mandarins of Udyog Bhavan actually expect any serious dialogue with the US on trade tangles during thePrime Minister's visit. Now that Prime Minister Vajpayee's truncated tour programme is confirmed, hopes of steel export duties being mentioned grow fainter.

The US trade commission has imposed 85 per cent duty (of which 72 per cent is anti-dumping duty) on plates exports by the Steel Authority of India Limited (SAIL), but need Indian exporters worry ? The US slapped anti-dumping and countervailing duties on exporters from a great many countries and put India on the "watch list" along with Japan and Korea. It also fixed a quota on Russian steel.

Six months after the series of harsh measures were imposed, US trade data shows that steel imports into that country had actually jumped 203 per cent to 20.2 million tonnes (mt) from 16.8million tonnes between January and June 1999. Indian exports to the US have jumped 275 per cent to 6.6 lakh tonnes from 1.76 lakh tonnes in the first six months of 1999 calendar.The anti-dumping measures taken by the US and the European Union have not curbed trade at all. The measures have simply helped push up steel prices in the world market.

The floor prices in vogue in India have not staved off the flow of imports either. Similarly, non-tariff measures on Indian steel have not been able to curb exports.

Steel exports from India jumped 23 per cent to 4.7 lakh tonnes in the first quarter of this fiscal, compared to the first three months of 1999-2000. In June India exported 1.74 lakh tonnes of steel to the US alone, which was 2545 per cent increase since June 1999.

India had only exported 7,000 tonnes of steel to the US then. Indian steel makes up less than 2 per cent of US imports and only a negligible part of Indian steel exports find their way to American ports.

Quantity, say industry sources, was not the issue at all. The issue was trade barriers and of course, access to one of the world's biggest steel markets. Annual steel imports into the US are almost twice the total steel production in India.

The US market crunched up more than 20million tonnes of steel between January and June and India produced 26 million tonnes of steel in the whole of last year. The other big steel market is the European Union. Steel makers have somewhat been able to iron out differences with European steelproducers ever since the India-European Commission Working Group came into being last year.

A Confederation of Indian Industry led delegation of steel-makers went to the US earlier this year. Even though the corporate delegates on that team and Confederation of Indian Industry have been able to keep the agenda of that mission under wraps, smoothening ruffled feathers was obviously one of the objectives.

The next step to an amicable relation ship is obviously to get thePrime Minister to mention Indian steel during his trip. Exporters will simply have to keep their fingers crossed.