Following the move in South Africa for an export restriction of chrome ore, India's ministry of steel set out to work on legislating a total ban of exports of chrome ore.

So far the government enforced the several restrictions against the ore export, such as maximum exportable quantity of high grade ores, minimum exporting price as determined by MMTC, obligation to add values to the exported ores and export tax.

This time, however, the ministry pleaded for a total ban for the first time. Background is that the country's stainless steel production is growing rapidly and domestic production of ferrochrome which is the indispensable raw material for stainless steel has been also growing. The ministry has made it very clear that the government should more seriously consider to secure the precious resource, the chrome ore.

The more important point is that although India has some chrome ore reserves, it cannot afford to let the precious resource flow out any more considering its forecasted rapid growth in the near future. This is definitely true with the medium and high grade ores which India has in its current reserves, only 1% of the world reserves.