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India ranks 7th in global steel production

According to the International Iron and Steel Institute (IISI), India produced 44 million tonnes of crude steel in 2006, 7.6 per cent more than the 40.9 million produced in the previous year.

China continued to rank first with 418.8 million tonnes, which was 17.7 per cent higher than 355.8 million produced in 2005, followed by Japan (116.2 million), the US (98.5 million), Russia (70.6 million) and South Korea (48.4 million). "Keeping in view the importance of the steel industry in the country, the government formulated a National Steel Policy in 2005 aiming at a production level of 110 million per annum by 2019-20," Das said in a written reply to the Lok Sabha.

He said since the industry had been deregulated, the government acts only as a facilitator, but it has taken several steps to increase production by expanding capacities of state-run units and removal of policy bottlenecks.

The Brussels-based institute said world crude steel output reached 1.24 billion tonnes in 2006, representing an increase of 8.8 per cent over 2005. This is also the highest level of crude steel output in history.