According to the government’s Joint Plant Committee (JPC), India’s export of finished steel reduced by over 30 per cent to 0.616 million tonnes (MT) during January 2018. In the first month of previous year, India had exported 0.890 MT of finished steel. The import of finished steel as well fell by 44.5 per cent to 0.335 MT in January 2018 from 0.604 MT during January 2017. Even such statistics could be seen, India managed to maintain its position as a net exporter of finished steel.
The JPC said, “India was a net exporter of total finished steel in January 2018 as also during April-January 2017-18.” However, for April-January 2018, according to the JPC data, a rise 40.2 per cent at 8.22 MT, as against 5.86 MT of finished steel exported during the same period in the ten-month period a year ago, is highlighted.
In the previous financial year, the imports of the total finished steel during the 10-month period grew 5.5 percent to 6.43 MT as against 6.09 MT during the same time. Over January 2017, country’s production of total finished steel during last month advanced by 5.7 to 9.54 MT.
During April-January 2017-18, the production also jumped 5.3 percent to 88.59 MT over the same period last year. The per capita steel consumption is about 63 kg, the ultimate plan of the government is to take it to 160 kgs by 2030-31.