Indian hot dip galvanized (HDG) coil exporters have marginally increased their offers during the past week by $5/mt to $550/mt FOB, moving in tandem with the slight firming up of ex-China offers, the weakening of the local currency, and the modest revival of bookings in key Gulf markets, traders said on Thursday, September 5.
“The slight recovery in ex-China offers has opened up a small window for local exporters to follow suit. More importantly, with the Indian rupee falling to a nine-month low breaching the INR 72 to the US dollar mark, buyers in key markets like the Gulf Co-operation Council (GCC) region have been asking exporters to pass on the benefits of the weakening currency in their offers,” a Mumbai-based trader said.
“In the GCC region, Indian trader-exporters have been able to conclude bookings of modest volumes, which is in sharp contrast to last month when any kind of transaction had dried up completely,” the trader added.
However, some traders said that, basing export price competitiveness just on the weakening of currency, will not enable India exporters to increase shipment volumes to overseas markets because most producers are basically facing input cost increases and this will hamstring them from any further big price adjustments.