NEW DELHI: The government on Wednesday said that India is likely to need about 300 million tonnes (MT) steel capacity by 2030 and 400 MT of steel capacity by 2035 to cater to the steel consumption demand in the country. The reason for this growing steel demand is due to India’s constant push on infrastructure strengthening, public and private sector development in buildings and real estate in the country. As per the ministry of steel, India is the only major economy, where steel consumption is growing at above 12 per cent for the last three years. On the contrary, the steel consumption in other geographies is either stagnant or declining. “To cater to this steel demand, the country will need about 300 MT steel capacity by 2030 and 400 MT of steel capacity by 2035,” the ministry said in a statement. This capacity creation, the ministry said, will require capital infusion of approximately US $200 billion by 2035. “If substandard cheap steel imports affect the domestic steel industry (both integrated steel producers and small steel industries) their capacity to infuse this capital will come into terrible strain and the capacity expansion plans of steel industry will be adversely affected,” it said. “This fast growth in steel consumption is due to the Government of India’s push on infrastructure strengthening, public and private sector development in buildings and real estate and growing manufacturing of capital goods in the country. It is also to be noted that because of excess capacity and declining consumption in certain countries, there is a big possibility of dumping of substandard steel,” the ministry said. “As India is the only fast-growing large economy in the world, there is a very high possibility of cheap steel getting pushed into the Indian market unless adequate measures are put in place for import of quality steel. It is to be noted that if intermediate inputs (which form the core of finished products like hot-rolled coil, cold-rolled coil or coated steel) are not BIS compliant and are substandard, the final product cannot be BIS compliant,” it added.
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