Achhe Din

In the $900 billion global steel industry which, like any other commodity industry, is prone to sharp upturns and downturns, the Indian market has forever been a bright spot. In the last 10 years, India's crude steel production has grown 6.2 per cent a year on average, the fastest among the big steel producing nations and more than double the world average of 2.37 per cent. In absolute terms, the rise has been from 57.8 million tonnes in 2008 to over 100 million tonnes last year. It has overtaken countries such as Russia and the US and is on the verge of surpassing Japan as the second largest steel producer, next only to China. Among the big nations, it is the only country that has reported an increase in production in each of the last 10 years. The trend is likely to continue. "We foresee demand for finished steel products at 92.1 MT in 2018, up 5.7 per cent