Tata Steel, which expects the next two years to be equally challenging as 2009, is all set to confront it by lowering costs, improving efficiencies and selling products at a premium.
?2010 and 2011 are going to be as difficult as 2009, as global economies are recovering but not at a speed at which one would be comfortable with like (what was seen) in 2006, 2007,? said HM Nerurkar, managing director (India & South East Asia), Tata Steel on Friday. India fortunately had not been hit badly by the global economic turmoil because of the existence of a good banking system and the stance of the government, both of which has helped industrial growth in the country, he said.
According to Nerurkar, though consumption of steel has been there in the country, prices will always be under threat because of global overcapacity. Tata Steel will find prices under pressure but volumes will increase. ?So (the) challenge to Tata Steel is to ensure that we lower our costs, improve our efficiency and look after our customers well so that we can sell more at a premium,? Nerurkar said.
Asked what he was looking forward to from the newly formed state government formed after a gap of 11 months by way of the coming together of the BJP, JMM and All Jharkhand Students Union (Ajsu), Nerurkar said the new government?s priority should be to be stable and pay more attention to industrialisation and urbanisation without which the standard of living can never be raised. As to the capacity at which the steel major?s European operations were running currently, he said, ?Our European operations were running somewhere between 80-85% during this quarter (October-December) and is expected to go up 90-95% capacity in the next quarter (January-March).? Nerurkar said the company?s plan of enhancing the capacity of its plant from 7 million tonne per annum (mtpa) to 10 mtpa was going on well and would be completed by October 2011. Nerurkar also said even though India had not been as badly affected as some of the developed economies had been in 2008 and 2009 it was still an ?extremely challenging? year for Tata Steel and its group companies which had ?weathered the storm? well.
