NEW DELHI, Jan 1: The Steel Authority of India Limited (SAIL) is in the process of setting up a consignment agency in Dubai, as part of its plans to evolve a "consistent export strategy".According to company top brass, the agency will essentially give SAIL access to an export yard for storing its materials. The PSU now exports to roughly 20 countries including the US, China and countries in West Asia and Europe, mainly through service centres and trading houses.The Dubai outfit will be SAIL's first permanent marketing base abroad. Chairman Arvind Pande had told The Indian Express sometime ago that SAIL planned to export at least 15 per cent of its production considering the company only exported five per cent of its output last year."Even 15 per cent (exports) is very low," said Pande, who is now grappling with a marketing strategy that could permanently lift SAIL out of the quagmire of a surfeit of products sans demand."Countries like Ukraine and Russia (where the saturation for infrastructure-building material occurred years ago) have been exporting 90-100 per cent of their products," he pointed out. During the current fiscal, the market leader (with a monopoly over at least 40 per cent of home sales) hopes to sell roughly 10 per cent of its output abroad, by doubling exports to a million tonne from 0.5 million tonne last year.Pande felt that SAIL was very close to its target having been able to achieve a 200 per cent rise in exports in the first six months, over the same period last year.Between April and September, SAIL earned Rs 560 crore from overseas sales of iron and steel, compared to Rs 225 crore in the first-half of last year. Finished steel exports shot up by 117 per cent to 3.73 lakh tonne from 1.71 lakh tonne in the first six months of the 1996-97 fiscal. The company also exported 1.21 million tonne of pig iron this year. The export focus is not restricted to SAIL. Flat steel producers are targeting the international market where prices are gradually turning more remunerative than a year ago, while the home market continues to be dull.Producers of value-added steel like Tata, Essar and Jindal Strips are positioning their products abroad, discouraged by the slow offtake of flat steel consuming industries like automobile manufacturers and white goods makers. The steel ministry has evolved a strategy based on a study. The paper has suggested that a shrewd and focussed policy could enable steelmakers to raise exports.
