It is certain even as final estimates are being made, that iron and steel exports, after reaching an all-time high of three million tonne in 1997-98, declined considerably last year and did not compensate Indian steel-makers for the low demand and prices at home. The trade division of SAIL widened its product mix and threw in new items into its export basket like TUV certified plates, TMT bars, hot rolled (HR) coils (of which India is an importer), concast slabs and 125 mm billets, to beable to get a toehold in new markets. It managed to double the export of wire rods and structurals and sold 500 tonne of TMT bars abroad for the first time. Even so SAIL's foreign exchange earnings halved to Rs 585 crore from Rs 1074 crore the year before. The volume of overseas sales also dropped drastically to half a million tonne of pig iron, mild steel and special steels, compared to a million tonne in 1997-98.

SAIL accounts for nearly a third of the country's iron and steel exports. In 1997-98 iron and steel exports from India peaked at 3.03 million tonne, from a slow upward climb begun in 1993-94 with 1.11 million tonne of overseas sales.

It managed to sell abroad a million tonne of iron and steel then, by doubling the previous year's exports. The export focus became a strategy with most steel makers at home, including SAIL after they were exposed to the free market in 1992.

Till then, India had been a sporadic exporter of iron and steel, driven to the overseas market every time recession hitsteel consumers at home. The country exported a million tonne of pig iron and 1.4 million tonne of steel in 1976, but exports fell steadily after that, as the domestic demand for steel picked up. After 1993-94, exports increased steadily, dropping marginally by 16 per cent in 1994-95, only to increase by 10 per cent again the following year. Iron and steel exports stagnated at 2.7 million tonne in 1995-96 and 1996-97, only to go up by 11 per cent in 1997-98, to touch the highest ever exports by the iron and steel industry at three million tonne.

The global recession, particularly in steel-consuming industries the world over, hit exports like domestic sales every where. The 2.5 per cent drop in the global output of steel notwithstanding, prices remained low, depressing sales. Steel prices picked up in the international market only towards the end of last year, following the series of penal tariffs imposed by governments in Europe and the US, to block cheap steel imports. The impact of those measures,often termed protectionist in respectable trade journals, has only begun to show this year and should impact the balance of steel companies by the end of the fiscal.