‘Indian steel industry growth can surpass GDP growth’

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: The Indian steel industry is in the limelight on account of the intensifying consolidation and rising raw material prices. With the entry of new foreign players, the domestic players are strengthening their presence, increasing capacities and working towards integration. JSW Steel is one such integrated player with focus on flat products. Seshagiri Rao MVS, director-finance, JSW Steel speaks with Jitendra Kumar Gupta of The Financial Express about the recent developments in the industry and the company.

How much is your current market share in comparison to your immediate competitors?

JSW steel is a major player in flat steel products in India and the second largest steel company in the private sector. We have various flat steel products with different applications in different industries such as automobiles, housing, tubes and pipes, LPG cylinder and white goods industry.

We have a 3.8 million tonne steel capacity as on date. While in terms of market share, we have 12% market share in HR coil, in case of galvanised steel we account for 14% in the domestic market. We have the largest galvanised steel facility in India, in fact larger than SAIL. We have 9,00,000 tonne pa capacity.

The Indian steel industry has been in the limelight recently as the Indian players are acquiring companies globally. Do you intend to step up some of the organic or inorganic initiatives to grow?

India has the distinctive advantage of low cost base and we want to make India as a manufacturing hub for basic steel making. We have been on the lookout for acquiring value added facilities close to the markets. However, in the case of basic steel making capacity acquisitions overseas, we will not go for acquisitions until it is very attractive, having raw material linkages.

As far as the business model we propose to follow is concerned, JSW will continue to process basic steel in India and if any value added facilities are available overseas, we would like to make acquisitions in those areas. These facilities will be used for converting basic steel produced in India into value added products and selling directly in those markets.

Have you taken any step in this direction?

We have been working on these initiatives for the last one and half to two years, and looked at certain facilities, and are evaluating them. At this point in time the proposals are at various stages of evaluation.