India comes close to Japan in crude steel output

India and Japan produced almost same amount of crude steel during January 2018 at 9.02 million tonne and 9.03 million tonne, respectively, World Steel Association said in a report.
In January 2017, crude steel production in India stood at 8.81 MT.
Steel Minister Chaudhary Birender Singh said the rise in steel output is a positive sign of the sector's commitment to sustained growth.
"The increase in Indias crude steel production, at 9MT in January 2018... is a positive indication of the steel sectors commitment to sustained growth," Singh said in a tweet.
Japan, the second largest steel producer, saw almost flat output of 9.03 MT compared to the year-ago period.

As per the report, the two Asian countries have produced almost same amount of crude steel. India, which overtook the US to become the world's third largest steel producer, is now looking to bag the second spot from Japan.

World leader China saw a marginal fall of 0.9 per cent in crude steel production in January this year at 67 MT. It had produced 67.58 MT during the same month last year.
Global crude steel production of the 64 countries reporting to the World Steel Association (worldsteel) was 139.43 MT in January 2018, a growth of 0.8 per cent year-on-year.

France produced 1.4 MT, Spain (1.1 MT), Turkey (3.2 MT), the US (6.8 MT), Brazil (2.9 MT).
"The crude steel capacity utilisation ratio of the 64 countries in January 2018 was 70 per cent. This is 0.2 percentage points lower than January 2017. Compared to December 2017, it is 0.7 percentage points higher," worldsteel said.
The World Steel Association is one of the largest and most dynamic industry associations in the world. Its members represent approximately 85 per cent of the world's steel production.