Over the past week, Indian exporters’ hot dip galvanized (HDG) coil offers have remained stable at $665/mt FOB, amid limited trades particularly with Gulf buyers staying away from making fresh bookings, traders said on Thursday, March 14.
“With ex-China exporters trying to push up offers and Indian commercial exporters maintaining offers unchanged, Gulf buyers tell us that they are waiting for some kind of correction to enter the import market,” a Mumbai-based trader said.
“According to reports in the market, Malaysia has imposed antidumping duty on ex-China HDG. It is possible that this could trigger a slight softening of ex-China offers and buyers in key markets like the Gulf Co-operation Council have been waiting for such a trigger for a correction, which in turn would impact ex-India offers too,” the trader added.
However, according to two other traders, the prime reason for low trading activity is that Indian commercial HDG exporters have not been pushing volumes overseas aggressively in the wake of the Indian currency appreciating sharply against the US dollar over the past week, impacting export margins.
The Indian currency has rallied in the last few days appreciating to a two-month high of INR 69.50 to the dollar and the stronger rupee will not offer a window for Indian exporters to adjust offers in a downward direction in order to push volumes, the two traders averred