India registers 6% growth in steel output in Jan-Sept.

Clocking an impressive 5.9% production growth during the January-September period of the current year, India remained the only bright spot among major steel-producing nations in the world.

According to data compiled by World Steel Association (WSA), output was largely negative or flat in countries like China, Japan, the US and Russia.While Indian steel production has immensely benefited from government’s various tariff and non-tariff measures to curb imports, the average global production declined by (-) 0.5% to 1,197 MT during the nine-month period mainly because of flat growth in output in China and a fall in production in major producers such as Japan, the US and Russia.

Production in China grew by just 0.4% to 604 MT while it fell by 0.5% in Japan at 78.3 MT, 1.3% in the US to 59.7 MT and 1.7% in Russia to 52.7 MT. India produced 71 MT steel during the period and maintained its third position in the world steel order followed by China and Japan.

Barring Asia, where production grew by a snail pace of 0.6% to 826 MT, no other region posted positive growth in steel production during the nine-month period. In the EU, it fell by 4.8% to 121 MT. In North America and in South America, steel output declined by 1.4% and 11.4% respectively. In West Asia, production dropped by 0.8% to 21 MT Asia while in the CIS countries, production fell by 0.1% to 76 MT.

In the month of September also, India’s growth has been the highest at 8.5% followed by China at 3.9%. Others like Japan, the US and Russia posted negative growth in the range of 1.5-3.8%. During the month, average global steel production was, however, up by 2% to 133 MT.

Source : financialexpress.com