Over the past week, Indian exporters of hot dip galvanized (HDG) coils have decreased their offers by $10/mt to $720/mt FOB, but this failed to entice buyers particularly from the US where flat steel prices are moving on a downward trend, traders said on Thursday, October 12.
“Local exporters buoyed by the ongoing weakness of the Indian rupee against the US dollar, marginally lowered offers to push sales, but this failed to have any impact on transaction activity,” a Mumbai-based trader said.
“The absence of any impact from lower offers is largely owing to the softening of US domestic HDG prices and the fact that the spreads between import and US domestic HDG prices are too narrow for steel distributors to conclude any deals for imports,” he added.
At least two other traders said that, despite the lowering of offers, large Indian steel mills and commercial exporters are not too aggressive in pushing overseas shipments as no one is willing to pay tax under the Goods and Service Tax and to have to wait until after about two months to get a refund. As a result, the reduction in Indian export offers is largely insignificant in terms of overall market conditions, the traders added.