July steel imports up 21%

India’s steel imports continued to rise on rising consumption. This is despite the recent hike in import duty on certain category of flat alloy products.

For the April-July period, steel imports from Korea and Japan were up 36 per cent to 2.5 million tonnes over the corresponding last period’s 1.88 million tonnes.

Total steel production during the period stood at 25.01 million tonnes, while consumption was pegged at 24.3 million tonnes. India continued to be an exporter of steel products, but the shipments were down 23 per cent to 1.2 million tonnes.