India's steel story continues to shine. The country's consumption of finished steel goods is expected to grow by 6.1% in 2017 compared with 2016.

According to the World Steel Association (WSA), India's steel product demand could reach 88.6 million tons in 2017, up from 83.5 million tons in 2016. WSA was also quite positive on India's steel demand in 2018, projecting a growth of 7.1% to 94.9 million tons.

Steel consumption in India's neighboring country China, however, would remain flat in 2017. The WSA estimated a 2% slump in demand for 2018.

The Indian Steel Association, too, has said publicly that the country was well on its way to becoming the second largest consumer of steel, beating the United States to the second spot.

The WSA said in its report that the U.S. was expected to continue to lead the growth in the developed work in 2017-18, based on strong fundamentals, newly announced measures related to fiscal stimuli, and rising infrastructure spending. It has estimated that steel demand in the U.S. will grow by 3% in 2017 to 94.3 million tons and then by 2.9% in 2018 to 97.1 million tons.

In India, in a further fillip to steel production, the government was contemplating making the use of Indian steel compulsory in all government or public sector funded projects. This would raise the per-capita consumption from 61 kilograms (134.5 pounds) to 160 kilograms (353 pounds) and increase production from 120 million ton to 300 million ton by 2030. The indication of this was recently given by Union Minister for Steel Chaudhary Birender Singh.

After reviewing the performance of Rashtriya Ispat Nigam Limited (RINL), the minister told reporters that "stringent measures" like imposing anti-dumping duty and minimum import price (MIP) had led to imports falling by 39% and exports increasing by 57%.

He added that the India's national policy on steel would be unveiled soon, after receiving approval of the Union Cabinet.

The move to make use of "Make in India" steel mandatory by government bodies comes in the wake of the central government's commitment to support the domestic steel sector, which has been incurring losses during the last couple of years due to excess production and dumping of steel products from China into India.

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