Tuesday, June 07,
Imports of hot rolled coils, sheets and plates have dropped from 509,000 tonnes in April 2010 to 263,000 tonnes in March this year. The imports fell further to 175,000 tonnes in April 2011 i.e. a fall of 65%.
Higher interest costs, expectations of lower prices due to slow sales and depreciation of the India rupee against the dollar have reduced steel imports in the past few months.
“High interest costs have led to some decline in steel items like colour coated sheets, used mainly in buildings and sheds,” says Neeraj Singhal, managing director of Bhushan Steel that makes most of these value added products. “Also, due to high interest rates, construction activity has slowed down. This has led to a decline in the offtake of steel items for such sector.”
Demand from Automobiles sector, which use colour coated and CR sheets, have also gone down given by seen low sales due to high interest costs and hike in petrol prices.
Most of the Indian traders are reluctant to sign fresh import bookings of hot rolled coil, on concerns that local steel prices could fall in the monsoon period.
According to internal agency reports, Indian importers are declining offers from premier Chinese mills’ HRC priced at $730-740 per tonne, as there is not much difference with Indian prices.
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