Buoyed by strong economic growth, the Government is expecting that steel demand is likely to grow at a higher annual average growth of over 10 per cent in the next five years as compared to 8 per cent of growth in the last fiscal. Chairng the meeting of consultative committee of Ministry of Steel in New Delhi the Minister of State for Steel, Mr Beni Prasad Verma said that while the economy grew by 8.9 per cent in the first six months of the current fiscal, the consumption of finished steel increased by 7 per cent in April to November and the Production grew by 7.3 per cent during the period. He said that in order to meet the growing demand of steel, 222 Memorandum of Understandings (MoUs) have been signed with various states for increasing the planned capacity to around 276 million tonne by the year 2019-20. He said that the government is also focusing towards expansion of Steel PSUs.