‘Anti-China sentiment is likely to give an opportunity to the downstream customers’

The company had registered sales volume of 915,900 tonnes in FY20. This would translate into a capacity utilisation of around 94 per cent given that the total steel production at the company’s plant in Jajpur is close to 973,995 tonne.

According to Vijay Sharma, Director, Jindal Stainless, empirical evidence suggest that consumption of stainless steel goes in tandem with the growth in GDP. Since there are “concerns” around growth in the economy in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic, which has impacted demand, the growth in the stainless steel industry could also be affected.

“Q1 was washed out due to the lockdown in April. Though we started opening up slowly in May, however, things started picking up from July onwards and by September we reached 80-90 per cent capacity utilisation. So in Q2 we have performed better than last year. Now moving forward with a little word of caution, if Covid continues to remain under control we are hopeful of sustaining our market,” Sharma told BusinessLine.