India imposed a 20 percent import tax on some steel products with immediate effect on Monday, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said, as the government investigates a threat to domestic companies from rising imports from China, Japan, South Korea and Russia. "Notification is being issued imposing a provisional safeguard duty effective from today on hot-rolled flat products of non-alloy and other alloy steel in coils of a width of 600 mm or more at the rate of 20 per cent ad-valorem for a period of 200 days," the finance ministry said in a statement. The products subject to the new tax together accounted for more than half of the 5.5 million tonnes of steel imported in the last fiscal year into India, the only major market that is expanding at a time when top consumer and exporter China is slowing. Indian steel companies, struggling to compete due to higher borrowing and raw material costs, have in recent months successfully lobbied to get duties on some products raised to 12.5 percent and quality checks strengthened. But those duties did not apply to Japan and South Korea, countries with which India has free-trade agreements, prompting the companies to seek a safeguard duty that applies to all. An Indian steel company executive, who declined to be named, said the so-called safeguard duty would not completely halt imports of the products but would prevent foreign suppliers from "predatory pricing" when local production is rising. Acting on a complaint lodged jointly by Steel Authority of India (SAIL), JSW Steel and Essar Steel , the Directorate General of Safeguards said last week any delay in implementing the duty would cause such damage to the local industry that it would be "difficult to repair".  The government accepted its recommendation and reports of the duty pushed up shares of SAIL, JSW, Tata Steel, Jindal Steel and Power and Bhushan Steel by between 1.2 and 3.8 percent on Monday. Imports were equivalent to 5 percent of India's total production of the under-investigation steel products in the year to end-March 31, 2014. But they have increased since then and are on course to equal 13 percent of India's output this fiscal year, or 3.4 million tons, according to the companies that sought the duty. (Reuters) -