By Our Correspondent
NEW DELHI: Union Petroleum and Natural Gas & Steel Minister Dharmendra Pradhan on Thursday held meeting with CEOs of steel industry in New Delhi.
The issues and bottlenecks concerning the industry and the possible solutions for them were discussed in the meeting.
The Minister assured the industry of full support and cooperation from the government. He said that the steel industry has matured over the years, and has come a long way, in terms of capacity building, quality assurance and technology upgradation. He said that the industry has to mark its place in the world, by being more competitive, improving the quality, and undertaking more exports.
Pradhan called upon the industry to do more value addition and fulfil the requirements of the niche sector. He called upon the industry to diversify their sources of raw material procurements, so as to bring down the costs and not being bound by limited channels.
The Minister said there is large scope and demand for the Indian products in the international markets. He assured them that the just and reasonable demands of the industry will be given due consideration, and early solutions to their problems will be explored.
The industry leaders raised several issues, including financing, easy availability of raw materials, free trade agreements, taxation, mining contracts, etc.
