Indian hot rolled coil imports which are hovering around USD 565-570/MT CFR Indian east coast are not attracting interest from importers. Trade sources claim that domestic prices are cheaper than imports and no one is willing to take position in current market.
According to Mr Shah, a Mumbai based importer said “Current offers for commercial grade HRC is at around USD 560-570/MT from Chinese and CIS suppliers. With these offers our landed cost comes around INR 38,000-39,000/MT (Including import duty of 7.5% and excluding other taxes), where as domestic offers are in the range of INR 36,000-37,000/MT (Basic prices, taxes extra).
Few other traders believe that domestic steel demand is not very encouraging primarily due to ongoing state assembly elections and also rising inflation in the country.
Most of them feel that domestic prices will be under pressure, if situation continues to remain same for next few weeks. Only advantage to steel manufacturers is de-valued currency, which had boosted steel exports from India. However export charm looks to be fading out over competitive offers from Chinese and Ukrainian suppliers.
According to a report import of HRC has witnessed a decline of 20-25% in the past 3 months.
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