Tata Steel today said that the steel consumption is likely to grow by about five per cent in the current fiscal as a result of slowdown in demand from the real estate and automobile sectors.
“We still hold the view that we (India) should have the growth of around five per cent in the current fiscal,” Tata Steel Managing Director H.M. Nerurkar told reporters on the sidelines of a CII event here.
India’s steel consumption grew just 3.3 per cent during the last fiscal, the lowest in the last three years. The consumption moved up by 9.9 per cent in 2010-11 and 5.5 per cent in 2011-12.
In the first five months of the current fiscal, the steel consumption grew just 0.3 per cent to 30.34 million tonnes.
The World Steel Association (WSA) has pegged India’s steel consumption growth at 5.9 per cent to 75.8 mt in 2013.
Nerurkar said that the slowdown in automobile and real estate sectors would have impact on steel consumption this fiscal.
He said that the country “is still growing, but not growing at the rate you want’’.
Construction, which consumes 60 per cent of the steel in India, also needs to grow, he added.
Steel prices would remain stable as raw material costs have stabilised.
“Prices always depend on raw material. There were some ups and downs in raw material prices. I think they have stabilised. As long as the price of raw material is stabilised, the price of steel will remain stabilised,” Nerurkar said.