Tata Steel managing director B Muthuraman has said that steel prices in the domestic market would stabilise in the coming months despite a record surge in the consumption during the first four months of the current fiscal year.

In an interaction with media persons, Muthuraman said that the steel consumption in the country had increased by nearly 50 per cent in the first four months of the current fiscal, when compared to the corresponding period last year.

“As a result of robust activity in the housing and industrial construction as well as the golden quadrilateral and infrastructure projects, the demand would continue to be on the rise. In the long run, prices are likely to stabilise for flat products too,” he said.

Muthuraman said that prices could stabilise in the next six months when the supply-demand would be more rationalised with the coming up of new small and medium plants. He added that the demand from automobile segment and consumer and industrial appliances was also encouraging.

Meanwhile, speaking on China’s curb on exports of Indian steel to be restricted to 3 per cent of its total imports, Muthuraman has said that China should lift the cap so that its importers could benefit from the competitive price of Indian steel products.

“Fixing such a small quota on a country of India’s size needs to be debated. It is not in conformity with the free trade policy under the WTO regime. The government needs to sort out the issue with its Chinese counterpart. This limit is not WTO compliant,” he said.

He said that the Indian steel exporters had already crossed the 3 per cent annual limit within the first four months of the current fiscal year and had exported to the tune of 4.5 per cent of China’s total steel exports. “As it is not WTO compliant, the industry has represented its position to the government for an early solution,” he added.

However, he said that Tata Steel’s revenues does not depend on exports as they contribute for only about 15 percent of the company’s turnover.

Interestingly, from January-June period of this year, Tata Steel’s exports to China has increased by 137 per cent in comparison to the corresponding period of last year.

In the first four months of the current fiscal, the company exported 45,728 tonne of steel and cold rolled products worth $621 million.