India’s steel output growth slows, falls below Asian average

News was prepared under the information support of Online Daily Newspaper on Hellenic and international Shipping "Hellenic Shipping News".

29 Jun 2008

India has recorded the lowest growth rate in steel production among the five Asian countries for the first five months of 2008. Indian steel production grew by 4.1 per cent during January-May against an Asian average of 7.9 per cent, according to data available with the International Iron & Steel Institute (IISI). From 8.8 per cent in January this year, the growth steadily went down to 0.3 per cent in May. In between, the growth rate in February remained at a stable 7.6 per cent before nose diving to 2.2 per cent in March. Production recovered rapidly in April and increased by 12.7 per cent.
According to a senior economist with the Steel Ministry, production in some plants had slowed down in March after operating above capacity during the earlier months due to mechanical reasons.
However, in net terms, the production increased by close to one million tonne (mt) from 21.97 tonne in the first five months of 2007 to 22.86 mt in the corresponding period of 2008, the official pointed out.
Global scenario
World steel production during the period increased by 5.6 per cent with the West Asian region showing the highest growth rate of 9.7 per cent, followed by the group of European countries outside the EU such as Turkey, Switzerland, among others, growing at 8.8 per cent.

Source: Hindu Business Line