India Aims to Become World's Second Largest Steel Producer

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Researched by Industrial Info Resources India (Delhi, India)--India, the world's fourth largest crude steel producer, is aiming to become the second largest producer of steel. Holding the position of world's fourth largest steel producer, preceded by China, Japan and the U.S., for the past four years, India has registered an output of 62.41 million tons in the first nine months of the current year.

World Steel Association (WSA) data showed that India's steel production grew by 1.8%, during the period, the second highest rate among the top four steel producing nations. "India is the fourth largest producer of crude steel in the world and is expected to become second largest producer of crude steel soon," said Steel Minister Narendra Singh Tomar, while inaugurating the India International Trade Fair (IITF) last week in New Delhi.

India had a crude steel production capacity of 101 million tons (MT) in 2013-14, against an actual production of 81.69 MT. India is a net exporter of finished steel and the export of total finished steel stood at 5.98 MT for the period. India continues to maintain its position of being the largest producer of sponge iron in the world.

During the first nine months, China produced 614.38 MT of steel, which is a little less than the half of world's total production of 1.36 billion tons. China logged 2.3% growth during the period. But its steel production remained static at 67.5 MT, in September 2014, as per WSA-data, when compared with the same month last year.

Japan remained the remote second with production of 83.12 MT during the nine-month period, clocking just 0.8% growth over 82.4 MT production in the same period last year. The U.S. stood in the third spot with 66.35 MT production, compared to 65.3 MT output during the January-September period of the last year.

Though the growth in world's third largest producing nation grew by 1.6% during the period, in September steel production in the U.S. fell by 0.1% from the same month last year. Russia and South Korea contend for the fifth slot with 53.15 MT and 53.3 MT output, respectively, in the first nine months of the current year.

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