Trade activities have slowed down all over the world. Exports from India have shown a significant decline. Exports of finished steel in India have dropped 34% from 5.77 mnt in 2021-22 to 3.78 mnt in 2022-23. This decline of 34% has included bookings before export tax imposition. Half-yearly basis also has shown a drop of 20% from 10.08mnt to 8.11mnt in 2022. A significant reduction has been observed in three products: longs, billets, and flats. Longs have a decline of 54% from 0.62 mnt to 0.28 mnt, and billets declined by 41% from1.47 mnt to 0.86 mnt in the first quarter of April-June 2022.
As shown in Fig:
Two factors are mainly responsible for the fall in India’s exports; one is that the 15% import duty levy had restricted its exports. Steel mills are working to increase their exports. Electrical steel/boron-added steel exports have risen from 2,334 tons in April 2022 to 7110tons in May 2022. The second reason is the decline in Vietnam’s imports from India because Vietnam has less demand for its value-added steel products from Europe, and steel mills prefer to use domestic materials compared to Indian materials due to price differences. Vietnam has a sharp decline of 64% in imports from India as it was 0.39mnt in 2021-22 and drop to 0.14mnt in Q1 2022-23.
It is expected that in the 2nd quarter, there will be more declines in India’s exports due to continued export tax, the Russian-Ukraine war, energy crises, debt crises, inflation, and logistics problems.
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