India, which became a net exporter of finished steel in fiscal 2025-26, may lose that position this fiscal as the European Union's revised steel safeguard duty impacts outbound shipments, a Crisil Intelligence report said on Thursday, July 30.
EU's revised steel safeguard measures could weigh on India's steel exports in 2026-27, with domestic steelmakers expected to shift focus to the home market amid tighter quotas and weak global prices, the report said.
Overall, steel exports are expected to decline 25-30 percent year- on-year in fiscal 2026-27, driven by lower EU quota allocations and high competition in global markets amid weak steel prices, particularly in the non-EU regions. With export realizations under pressure, steelmakers are likely to focus more on the domestic market," the report said.
The report said that under the EU's revised steel safeguard quota, effective July 1, volume-based import quotas have been significantly reduced, resulting in a 41 percent decline in India's share. However, the introduction of India-specific product quotas, especially for quarto plates, limits the overall decline to around 30 percent.
Though the tighter quota allocation is expected to constrain India's export opportunities and intensify competition in the EU market, the newly introduced free trade agreement-country-specific quota (FTA-CSQ) and FTA-others quota categories under the India-EU FTA may provide some relief, the report said.
These additional quota pools could offer Indian steel exporters alternative channels to access the EU market and partially offset the impact of the safeguard revisions, although "the extent to which these provisions would help remains to be seen”, it added.
In calendar year 2025, the EU imported around 29.7 million mt of steel, of which about 2.4 million mt was from India, translating into an 8 percent share, the report said.
While India exports only 3-5 percent of its finished steel production, nearly 40 percent of those exports were shipped to the EU in calendar year 2025, underscoring the region's importance for domestic steel producers, it added.
