Over the past week, Indian exporters' hot dip galvanized (HDG) coil offers have decreased by $20/mt to $730/mt FOB in response to the depreciation of the Chinese and Indian currencies, but nonetheless this failed to revive any interest among overseas buyers, traders said on Thursday, July 5.
“Indian exporters were forced to lower offers in response to the depreciation of the Chinese currency and the fall in ex-China HDG offers and the simultaneous fall in value of the Indian rupee against the US dollar,” a Mumbai-based trader said.
“However, despite the currency impact on export offers, buyers, particularly from the Gulf Coperation Council (GCC) market, have continued to stay away from any transactions from India where the lack of export activity continues,” the trader added.
According to two other traders, large HDG exporting Indian steel mills are not pushing export volumes either since much of the benefit of the fall in value of the rupee would need to be passed on to the buyer by lower offers, whereas these steel mills are getting much higher margins from sales on rupee basis in the domestic market.
According to a market source, some Indian exporters have received enquiries from the GCC but no transactions have been concluded as buyers have been seeking deals in the range of $740-750/mt CFR Gulf against local offers of $730/mt on FOB basis.