India’s Tata Steel Limited will invest an estimated $1.2 billion every year to increase its steelmaking capacity by 1-2 million mt per year to maintain its market share, company chief executive officer T V Narendran said in a statement on Monday, January 8.
Mr. Narendran said that the demand for steel grew by 10-12 percent in 2023 and the trend will continue, but he expressed apprehension over rising imports from China. "China was exporting 8 million mt of steel every month in 2023, which was the highest since 2015, and this has an impact on international steel prices as well as profitability,” he said.
“The steel sector in India is still in recovery mode after the Covid pandemic. But demand for steel will continue to grow on the back of government focus on infrastructure. 2023 has been good year for the steel sector in India, even though it was a challenging period globally,” the Tata Steel CEO said.
In August 2023, Narendran had said the company was planning to scale up its annual installed steelmaking capacity to 40 million mt per year by 2030 in India, from around 22 million mt per year at present.