Local Indian rebar trade prices have entered a free fall during the past week, with a complete halt in trading reported from a few regional markets and medium-sized secondary mills reducing prices but still failing to reverse the slow pace of stock movements, SteelOrbis learned from trade and industry circles on Tuesday, April 12.
Indian rebar trade prices have slumped by INR 3,000/mt ($39/mt) to INR 63,300/mt ($833/mt) ex-Mumbai and are down INR 3,300/mt ($43/mt) to INR 58,000/mt ($763/mt) ex-Raipur in the central regional market. Trade prices have dropped by INR 1,700/mt ($22/mt) to INR 64,000/mt ($842/mt) ex-Chennai in the south.
“Negative market sentiments continue to worsen every day. More reports of construction halts are coming in fast. The cost push coupled with a demand crunch is crippling for secondary mills,” an official at eastern India’s largest long product manufacturer said.
“Every seller is seeing inventory increase over the past two weeks even after price reductions. We are hoping for a demand revival and for trade to gather momentum, or else we will seriously have another assessment of our current plant utilization level,” he said.
The Builders Association of India (BAI) has already said that more real estate developers in the south have been halting construction owing to rising input costs.
“Even after the latest price fall, rebar prices continue at least 10-12 percent higher than a year ago. Real estate developers tell us that they need to hike prices of completed housing projects by at least 15 percent, but consumers are not ready to pay more and hence new projects are being put on the backburner. This translates to a lack of bookings for us,” a Mumbai-based distributor said.
$1 = INR 76.00
