Bucking the trend, India's steel production growth rate in May at just 1.5 per cent slipped below the global average of 2.6 per cent.

India's steel output stood at 6.73 million tonnes during the month against 6.63 million tonnes a year earlier, industry body World Steel Association (WSA) said today.

In contrast, global production increased to 136 million tonnes in May 2013 compared to 132.8 million tonnes produced in the same month last year. In April this year also, India's production growth rate was higher at 3.5 per cent compared to world's average of 1.2 per cent.

In fact, India's growth rate is better in first months of the current year than the world's average. Steel production in India grew by three per cent in India to 33.258 million tonnes between January and May compared to world's average of 2.1 per cent to 658 million tonnes, WSA said.

Meanwhile, in May this year, China's production was up by 7.3 per cent at 67 million tonnes and Japan's output grew by 4.3 per cent to 9.6 million tonnes. However, it fell by 7.1 per cent in South Korea to 5.5 million tonnes.

Among the European Union nations, production dipped in Germany by 1.5 per cent, Italy (11.1 per cent) and France (by 3.5 per cent). It also declined in Turkey by two per cent to three million tonnes.

Recording just a slight increase, Russia produced 6.1 million tonnes. The US produced 7.5 million tonnes of steel in May 2013, down by 4.9 per cent. Brazil produced three million tonnes of steel, up 5.5 per cent. "The crude steel capacity utilisation ratio remained nearly unchanged at 79.6 per cent compared to 80 per cent in April 2013," WSA said.