India's iron ore exports will
recover from this year's depressed levels but will not rise above 100 million
tonnes, the country's mining secretary said, as a crackdown on illegal sales pays
off.
Vishwapati Trivedi said stricter
controls of mining were helping determine the “natural level” of
export – his euphemism for legal sales – in the long run from the world's third
biggest supplier, whose major customer is China.
Traders have already slashed
forecasts for 2011/12 exports from India to around 50 million tonnes, about
half last year's figure, dropping it below South Africa in the export rankings.
The fall will come after the
Supreme Court banned mining in some areas and the government hiked export taxes
to crush illegal sales.
While the government has shown an
inclination to conserve resources, it says it does not support a blanket ban on
exports and wants just to bring in transparency in the sector.
In addition, Indian steelmakers
lack the technology currently to use the ore fines which the country mostly
produces and exports to China.
“Our policy is somewhere in
between, we do need the foreign exchange, we do need the exports but we do need
the resources also in the long run,” Trivedi said.
“If we develop the
processing capacity and we don't have the ore then that will not be a very good
idea.”
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