India's state-owned iron and steel authority Ltd. (SAIL) said on Thursday that its total steel sales in August rose 35% year-on-year to 1.344 million tons, the company's best ever record, foreign media reported.

Sail sold 1.24 million tons of steel in the domestic market in August, and exported 194000 tons.

Anil Kumar Chaudhary, chair of sail, said: "the current sales figures confirm sail's efforts to recover from the epidemic. We are very optimistic that demand will pick up as soon as possible. The economy will return to normal. "