Superseding Japan, India has now emerged as the second-largest steelmaker in the world. With China on top, India had been holding the number three slot for the third year in a row till 2017. A spectacular 3.4% rise in production to 8.4 million tonne (mt) compared with Japan’s 0.5% output fall to 8.2 mt in February made India’s production second highest not just for the month, but for the January-February period of the current year as well. Japan had produced more than India in all preceding months including in January 2018. While China is miles ahead of others in terms of production, the gap between Japan and India was narrowing in the past few years. Japan produced 104.7 mt steel in 2017 compared with India’s 101.4 mt.

(Financial Express)