Tata Steel ramping up NatSteel Asia units
Financial Express — March 18, 2006

Tata Steel is expanding NatSteel Asia (NSA) facilities in China and Australia.

The steel major had in February 2005 through NSA taken over NatSteel, a group of companies operating as different legal entities in countries like Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Vietnam, the Phillipines, Australia and China, with as many as five joint venture partners. It had, however, during the buying process left out a unit in China because of issues on local clearances, thus making the existing capacity of the NSA units stand at 1.7 million tonne (mt), instead of the 2 mt originally planned.

According to Tata Steel deputy managing director (steel), Dr T Mukherjee, barring the units in China and the Phillipines, which have been under pressure due to local conditions, all NSA units so far during the current year have performed to full capacity.

"We are adding another line to our wire plant in China and that should increase its capacity by almost 40% during this year," said Dr Mukherjee, responding to query from FE about additional investments planned in NSA units.

Tata Steel sees growth potential in the South-East Asian countries like Vietnam, Indonesia, Thailand and the Phillipines.

"Some countries in S-E Asia, like Vietnam, have steel consumption growing at over 10% a year. Other large countries like Indonesia, who traditionally had a very low per capita consumption of steel, are starting to grow rapidly," responded Dr Mukherjee on the steel company's prospects in the region, adding that the steel major also "sees potential for growth in Thailand and the Phillipines".