Only India among top 5 steel producers sees YoY growth in April

India is the only nation among the world’s top five steel manufacturing countries to witness a year-on-year growth in production during the month of April 2024. China, the world’s largest maker of steel, saw its April production take a drop of more than 7 per cent compared to last year.

Japan, the United States and Russia, the world’s other three top steel-manufacturing nations, saw a slump in production that ranged from 2 per cent to 6 per cent during the same period, according to data released by the World Steel Association.

India is currently the second-largest manufacturer of steel and the country saw production of the metal increase to 12.1 million tonne, or by 3.6 per cent, in April 2024. Overall, between January and April this year, India witnessed an 8.5-per cent growth, producing 49.5 million tonne of steel.

On the other hand China’s steel production declined by more than 7 per cent year on year to 85.9 million tonne in April this year. Overall, between January and April this year, China produced 343.7 million tonne of steel, which is a 3-per cent drop from the figure the country recorded in 2023.

The fact that the data underlines is while production and utilisation of steel remains steady in India, demand for the metal presently continues to be erratic internationally, mainly owing to inflation and steep interest rates.

India’s import of steel from China in the January-March fiscal quarter rose by almost 60 per cent year on year. In turn, selling price of the metal took a hit. Hot-rolled coils of steel, which is considered a benchmark, became cheaper by almost 10 per cent in the March quarter compared to the same period last year. Steel prices in India, in sync with the global trend right now, has slowly started seeing an upward swing.