India outstripped Asian industrial giant Japan to become the second largest steel producer in February as its crude steel output grew by 3.43 per cent to 8.434 million tonnes (MT) in the month against 8.296 MT of the latter, according to global steel body Worldsteel data.
India had almost caught up the Asian giant in January by producing 9.02 MT crude steel compared and 9.03 MT by Japan.
However, Japan retreated to the third spot in February due to a 0.5 per cent fall in steel production compared to 8.340 MT in the year-ago month, Worldsteel data showed.
On year-on-year basis, India registered a growth 3.43 per cent in February as compared to 8.154 MT in February 2017, World Steel Association said in its latest report.
World leader China saw a rise of 5.9 per cent in crude steel production in February this year at 64.930 MT. It had produced 61.328 MT during the same month last year.
The US produced 6.4 Mt of crude steel in February 2018, a 0.4% increase on February 2017.
Global crude steel production of the 64 countries reporting to the World Steel Association was 131.791 MT in February 2018, a growth of 3.5 per cent year-on-year.
"The crude steel capacity utilisation ratio of the 64 countries in February 2018 was 73.3 per cent. This is 1.8 percentage points higher than February 2017. Compared to January 2018, it is 0.5 percentage points higher," the report said.
(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
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