Indian Steel Industry Shows Its ‘Metal’; Overtakes Japan As World’s Second Largest Producer

According to the latest data published by the World Steel Association (Wordsteel), India has replaced Japan to become the second largest producer of steel in the world, behind only China.

“India’s crude steel production for 2018 was 106.5 Mt, up by 4.9 per cent on 2017, meaning India has replaced Japan as the world’s second largest steel producing country. Japan produced 104.3 Mt in 2018, down 0.3 per cent compared to 2017,” a 25 January report by Worldsteel said.

China continues to remain the world’s largest steel producer and increased its share from 50.3 per cent in 2017 to 51.3 per cent in 2018. While steel production in the European Union (EU) declined by 0.3 per cent in 2018 compared to 2017, the US produced 86.7 Mt of crude steel, up by 6.2 per cent in 2017.

To Also Become Second Largest Consumer

According to WorldSteel, India is all set to overtake the US as the world’s largest consumer of steel in 2019. Also, unlike China and Japan, India is the only large economy where steel demand has registered a positive growth since 2015.

However, this could be due to the low per capita consumption of steel in India. While it stands at around 68 kg for India, the world average is 208 kg.

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