India’s steel imports continued to rise on rising consumption. This is despite the recent hike in import duty on certain category of flat alloy products.
For the April-July period, steel imports from Korea and Japan were up 36 per cent to 2.5 million tonnes over the corresponding last period’s 1.88 million tonnes.
According to the latest provisional data from the Joint Plant Committee under the Ministry of Steel, the import of non-alloy or carbon steel products grew 37.3 per cent to 1.96 million tonnes for the period.
Alloy steel imports were up 32 per cent at 6.01 lakh tonnes. In July alone, total steel imports were up by 21 per cent at 5.69 lakh tonnes.
The Government had raised the customs duty from five to 7.5 per cent on imports of certain category of products to ensure that both alloy and non-alloy steel attract the same level of duty.
Thanks to the lower import duty of five per cent on alloy steel against 7.5 per cent for non-alloy, many import consignments of non-alloy steel treated with boron were being categorised as alloy steel.
The rise in imports can be attributed to growth in consumption, which stood at 7.7 per cent in the first four months of the current fiscal when domestic production grew by 3.3 per cent.
Total steel production during the period stood at 25.01 million tonnes, while consumption was pegged at 24.3 million tonnes.
India continued to be an exporter of steel products, but the shipments were down 23 per cent to 1.2 million tonnes for the period.
Steel consumption grew at six per cent in 2011-12. For the current fiscal, large steel makers like SAIL and Tata Steel expect domestic consumption to grow between 8-9 per cent.
The World Steel Association (WSA) in its short range outlook for 2012 has predicted a rebound in Indian steel demand pegging the off-take at 6.9 per cent to 72.5 million tonnes.