The Steel Minister Chaudhary Birender Singh addressed a Curtain Raiser media conference on ‘India Steel-2017 3rd International Exhibition-cum-Conference to be held on 19-21 April, 2017, in Mumbai’ on the theme “Indian Steel Industry: looking up to 2030- Raw material, production, demand and logistics”, in New Delhi today.In his opening remarks, Chaudhary Birender Singh said that the past 3 years have been quite challenging for the steel industry. Government of India intervened strategically to provide policy and regulatory support from time to time, which has given desired results like improvement in capacity utilization to over 78%, reduction in imports by 39% and significant increase in exports by 78% in the 11 months of current financial year.
He said, at present, the steel industry in India is on a path of growth and soon will become the 2nd largest steel producer in the world. Steel Ministry is ready with a National Steel Policy 2017, which is in the final stages. The two regional conferences for increasing steel consumption in India were held recently in Gangtok and in Ludhiana and another three such regional conferences will be held in other parts of the country in coming months. A national conference of secondary steel producers is also on the anvil on 5th April 2017 in New Delhi. Talks are going on with other user ministries to recommend use of steel in infrastructure, housing and related sectors. Inter-ministerial consultation is going on for maximising use of Indian made steel in key projects, the Minister said. On raw material front also lot of new developments have taken place.
Railways have accorded permission for laying of slurry pipelines along railway tracks, coal washeries are being planned to increase usage of domestic coking coal, diversion of coking coal to thermal power plants is being reviewed and iron ore availability has improved. The ‘India Steel 2017’ will be highlighting India’s strength in steel sector to the world. All stakeholders from the steel industry will come together on this occasion including raw material suppliers, technology providers, steel producers, logistics partners and buyers. Unique features of ‘India Steel 2017’ this time include a Reverse Buyer Seller Meet, exclusively for the steel sector, that is, instead of going out to buyers of steel in other countries, the international organisations are coming to India to view our product offerings and have buyer-seller meetings. Around 200 international buyers of steel products are being invited from more than 75 countries to forge business alliances with Indian steel producers.
Delegates are mainly from the developing nations like Middle East, CIS, SAARC, Africa and CLMV (Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, and Vietnam). Another first is a dedicated session for women as women can be perfect brand ambassadors for steel, as also influencers and opinion makers. FICCI Ladies Organization will conduct one session exclusively dedicated to the women in their different roles.The Minister urged the Media to play an important role in disseminating the advantages of steel to different stakeholders and the end consumer of steel through human-interest stories on how steel can help them in various walks of life. Dr. Aruna Sharma, Secretary Steel, Shri S. Abbasi, Joint Secretary, Ministry of Steel and Shri Manab Majumdar, Assistant Secretary General, FICCI were present on the occasion and interacted with the media.