Steel producers are looking to hike the prices of their flat products that are used by the auto-mobile and consumer dura-bles sectors.
A decision regarding the hike would be taken in the next few days, Jayant Ach-arya, director (sales & marketing), JSW Steel said.
Some kind of small correc-tion was likely in zinc-based products like galvanised steel this month.
“We are yet to decide on a hike in the prices of hot rolled and cold rolled products. We are presently reviewing if we can increase the prices this month,” he said.
The price increase would be on the back of a strong upward movement in international steel prices. Ankit Miglani, director (commercial), Uttam Galva Steels (cold roller and galvanised steel manufacturer) said the company had not decided on a price hike, but was discussing with suppliers.
Industry sources said, galvanised steel producers were contemplating an increase of around Rs 750 a tonne.
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Anil Sureka, director (finance), Ispat Industries said, international prices were strong and the company would decide on a hike in the next couple of days.
The steel industry was hoping that the government would propose an import duty hike of 5-10 per cent across steel products. But, this has not happened.
Sureka said that would not be a deterrent for a price increase as prices were moving up in the international market. During the last one month, hot rolled coil prices rose from $50-$60 to $500 a tonne.
Acharya said that it appeared that prices in the international market had bottomed out. “But the industry was more concerned about a demand revival and hence the cautious approach to the price hike.”
Moreover, the supply side had also improved in the domestic market with more and more producers normalising production.
The industry had to resort to an average production cut of 30 per cent towards the end of 2008 due to the global slowdown. While most steel producers in the domestic market had normalised their production, international companies were yet to restore their production to their ear-lier levels.
However, Indian cold rollers disagreed. “Supply of hot rolled coils is tight in the market,” said a cold rolled producer.