India's finished steel consumption totaled 17.8 million mt in the first quarter of the current Indian fiscal year (started April 1, 2013), stable compared to the level recorded in the same period last year, according to provisional estimates released by the Joint Plant Committee (JPC) which is part of India's Ministry of Steel.
According to the data, the country's finished steel production rose by 3.9 percent year on year to 19.7 million mt in the April-June period. Among the main producers, state-owned steel producer SAIL recorded a slight growth of 0.9 percent in finished steel output compared to the same period of the previous fiscal year with 2.5 million mt, while the finished steel output of RINL rose 14.3 percent to 703,000 mt and Tata Steel's finished steel output rose 30.1 percent to 1.8 million mt, both year on year.
In the period in question, Indian finished steel imports were down 34.1 percent year on year to 1.3 million mt, while the country's finished steel exports were up 12.7 percent year on year to 994,000 mt.