India’s steel consumption growth seen waning

India’s steel consumption growth is likely to slow down for its financial year-ending March 31, 2020, as its domestic downstream industries face weaker demand for their end-products. Steel consumption for April-July amounted to 33.706 million mt, about 6.6% higher than the 31.607 million mt recorded a year ago, data from state-run Joint Plant Committee showed. The 6.6% rise was less than the year-ago growth. April-July 2018’s consumption was 9.7% higher from the 28.820 million mt seen in the corresponding months of 2017. By tonnage, the April-July 2019 increase against 2018 was 2.099 million mt while the corresponding rise in 2018 from 2017 was 2.787 million mt. Another indicator of the weaker demand was that both imports and exports fell during the four months. The former was down 6% to 2.496 million mt on the year while the latter fell 23.5% to 1.474 million mt, a report from the Ministry of Steel showed.