Steel consumption to grow by around 5% in FY'14: Tata Steel

Tata Steel today said 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 current fiscal," Tata Steel managing director H M Nerurkar told reporters on the sidelines of a CII event here.

India's steel consumption grew by just 3.3 per cent in last fiscal, the lowest in last three years. The consumption moved up by 5.5 per cent in 2011-12 and 9.9 per cent in 2010-11.

In the first five months of the current fiscal, India's steel consumption grew by just 0.3 per cent to 30.34 million tonnes.

Leading industry body World Steel Association (WSA) has pegged India's steel demand growth at 5.9 per cent to 75.8 million tonnes in 2013.

Mr Nerurkar said slowdown in automobile and real estate would have impact on steel consumption this fiscal. He said 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 price would remain stable as raw material costs have stabilised, he said.

"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," Mr Nerurkar said.