India’s finished steel exports drop 30% in Jan to 0.616 MT

The Dollar Business Bureau

The exports of finished steel from India dropped by more than 30% to 0.616 million tonnes during January this year as compared to same month a year ago, as per the data compiled by the Ministry of Steel’s Joint Plant Committee (JPC). 

Joint Plant Committee (JPC) is the only organisation in the country empowered by the Government to maintain data on steel and iron sector.

The country’s finished steel export stood at 0.890 million tonnes during the month of January 2017. 

Earlier, Steel Minister Chaudhary Birender Singh had said that steel exports of should make up for around 6-7% of country’s overall steel production in the coming few years, from the current 1.5%. 

On the other hand, the import of finished steel also declined by 44.5%. The imports were 0.335 million tonnes in January this year as compared to 0.604 million tonnes during January last year. 

Due decline in both exports and imports numbers, India managed to keep its position of net finished steel exporter. 

“India was a net exporter of total finished steel in January 2018 as also during April-January 2017-18,” said the JPC. 

However, during April-January period of the current fiscal, finished steel exports recorded an increase of 40.2%. During the ten-month period, the exports of finished steel stood at 8.22 million tonnes as against 5.86 million tonnes in the same period a year ago. 

During April-January 2017-18, the imports of finished steel rose by 5.5% to 6.43 million tonnes as against 6.09 million tonnes in the same period in the previous financial year. 

India’s total finished steel production during January increased by 5.7% to 9.54 million tonnes over the same month last year. During April-January this fiscal, the production increased by 5.3% to 88.59 million tonnes as against the same period last fiscal.

In January, the overall consumption stood at 7.63 million tonnes an increase of 6.8% over same month in 2017. 

India’s per capita steel consumption is around 63 kg. The government is aiming to take this to 160 kg by 2030-31.