The government has now made it mandatory for traders to register themselves with the Steel Import Monitoring System (SIMS) to import all iron and steel products as also certain railways related items, a move aimed at discouraging inbound shipments of such goods and promoting local manufacturing, a public notice issued on September 28 said. The mandatory registration was earlier imposed on about 300 items. Now about 530 more products have been added.The restrictions were imposed on all products under chapter 72 (iron and steel), chapter 73 (articles of iron and steel) and chapter 86 (railway Or tramway locomotives, rolling-stock and parts; railway or tramway track fixtures and fittings; mechanical traffic signalling equipment of all kinds). The Directorate General of Foreign Trade (DGFT), under the commerce ministry, said that “import” of these products “shall now require compulsory registration” under the SIMS. These items include certain flat-rolled products; some stranded wire, ropes, cables; certain items of springs and leaves for springs of iron and steel; tubes, pipes and hollow profiles; diesel-electric locomotives; and some parts of railways. SIMS, under the Department of Commerce, collects and publishes data of steel mill product imports.