India’s finished steel exports more than halved during the first 10 months of the fiscal year that began in April 2022, due to sluggish global demand, according to the latest government data seen by Reuters on Thursday.

The country’s steel exports fell 52.2% to 5.33 million tonnes between April and January, with the removal of an export tax in November failing to revive exports.

Despite that, India, which is the world’s second-biggest producer of crude steel, was a net exporter of the alloy during the April-January period.

In May last year, New Delhi raised the export tax on some steel intermediates, impeding overseas sales and impacting the financial health of India’s steelmakers, which reported a drop in profits in the December quarter.

But most steel companies, including JSW Steel Ltd JSTL.NS, India’s biggest steelmaker by capacity, have projected a pick-up in overseas sales in the current quarter through March.

Between April and January, India’s finished steel output increased 5.2% to 98.3 million tonnes, and consumption went up by 10.8% to 96.4 million tonnes, the data showed.

India imported 5 million tonnes of finished steel during the period, up 28% from a year earlier. Crude steel production was up 4.2%, at 103.2 million tonnes.
Source: Reuters (Reporting by Neha Arora; Editing by Mayank Bhardwaj and Sharon Singleton)