India overtakes Japan to become world’s second-largest crude steel producer

New Delhi: By increasing its production by 4.9 percent to 106.5 million tonnes last year, India overtook Japan to become the second largest producer of crude steel. At a time when global crude steel output rose by 4.6 percent, production in Japan fell 0.3 percent to 104.3 MT in 2018.  On the other hand, China, which produces over half the world's steel, saw its production rise by 6.6 percent to 928.3 million tonnes, according to the World Steel Association.

"India's crude steel production in 2018 was at 106.5 MT, up by 4.9 per cent from 101.5 MT in 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," the World Steel Association said.

From 1,729.8 MT in 2017, global output reached 1,808.6 MT last year, world steel said. The fourth largest steel producer, the United States, produced 86.7 MT of crude steel, while South Korea produced 72.5 MT to be the fifth largest producer.

EU registers slight production decrease

"The EU (European Union) produced 168.1 MT of crude steel in 2018, a decrease of 0.3 percent compared to 2017. Germany produced 42.4 MT of crude steel in 2018, a decrease of 2.0 percent on 2017. Italy produced 24.5 MT in 2018, up by 1.7 percent on 2017. France produced 15.4 MT of crude steel, a decrease of 0.7 percent on 2017. Spain produced 14.3 MT of crude steel in 2018, a decrease of 0.1 percent on 2017," world steel said.