POSCO dedicated a cold-rolled steel plant in the Billebagad Industrial Complex in Maharashtra State, India, on Jan. 22. It has an annual capacity to turn out 450,000 tons of CGL and 300,000 tons of ACL — 1.8 million tons in all. POSCO invested $709 million in the steel plant, whose products will be supplied mainly to automakers in India.
A slew of dignitaries attended the ribbon cutting ceremony for the dedication of the new steel plant, including POSCO Chairman Kwon Oh-joon, Minister Narendra Tomar of the Ministry of Steel in the central government of India, Minister Subashi Desai of the Ministry of Industry in the Maharashtra State Government and Minister Prakash Mehta of the Ministry of Labor in the state government, and executives of foreign auto makers operating in India such as Volkswagen, Nissan and Toyota, among others. There were some 250 participants at the event.
Chairman Kwon, in his congratulatory speech in English at the ceremony, said POSCO’s new steel plant will play a role to help India become a core car maker in the world, successfully operating the plant. Furthermore, he pledged to support the host country’s economic growth as well as the regional economy and the development of the regional society. The new steel plant would go further and help its customers by not only supplying them with excellent-quality steel products, but also conducting solution-marketing programs to provide application technologies to support its customers more positively in their operations.
Before attending the dedication ceremony, Chairman Kwon called on Prime Minister Modi of India, Steel Minister Tomar and other high-ranking Indian government officials, to discuss POSCO’s operation on the subcontinent and ask for help at POSCO’s new steel plant’s success.
POSCO’s operational profit for 2014 amounted to 3.213 trillion won, up 7.3 percent year-on-year with sales coming to 65.984 trillion won, up 5.2 percent year-on-year. POSCO is considered to have done well last year, despite the poor business environment, which is attributed to a prolonged slowdown in the global steel market and Chinese steel products making expanded inroads into Korea. But net profit nose dived last year due to increased tax assessment and a fall in the prices of the steel maker’s shares of the listed companies at the securities market.
In the meantime, Chairman Kwon conducted an executive reshuffle at POSCO and affiliates, exchanges many of the executives who spent more than three years at the same positions, also some brought to POSCO from at the affiliates based on Chairman Kwon’s policy to make personnel moves based on performance results. The moves on promotions are scheduled to take place in March following the shareholders’ meeting.
Some of the important personnel moves include naming Kim Hak-dong, representative of POSCO SNNC, to head POSCO Steel Production, while Managing Director Ahn Dong-il takes over as the head of the Gwangyang Steel Production, the first such move for the head of an affiliated company to be named to lead a steel production.
Standing Director Chung Ki-seob of Daewoo International, has been named to be an executive in charge of the Operation Control of the Value Management Office, a key unit that maps out management strategies for POSCO Group.
Deputy Director Park Mi-wha of POSCO ICT has been appointed to take over Information and Planning at the Management Infrastructure Headquarters. She is an expert in information technology.
