The Chief Executive Officer and Managing Director of Tata Steel, TV Narendran has suggested to the government to focus on “cost of business” to make industries, particularly the manufacturing sector, more competitive.

“As the government has focused on ‘ease of doing business’, it should also focus on ‘cost of business’ to make industries, particularly the manufacturing sector, more competitive in the prevailing market,” Narendran told reporters on Wednesday. “We have been controlling the cost of business inside the work but outside the plant, it is not in our hands but the Central and State governments,” the Tata Steel CEO said.

He said that such an initiative would certainly improve competitiveness of the domestic industries, particularly the manufacturing units.

Referring to the prevailing scenario in the steel sector, Narendran said that 2019 had been a difficult year for the steel sector and that Tata Steel was not an exception as the company had its own set of challenges to deal with.

However, Narendran said that there has been some signs of improvement in the last few months of 2019. He expressed confidence that the company will improve its performance in the last quarter (January-March) of the current fiscal as ‘demand of steel is okay’. “The January to June months would be favourable for the steel sector in view of the activities in construction and infrastructure sectors,” he said.

Commenting on the prevailing economic slowdown, he said that the April to October had been the worst period for the steel sector, but it has improving from November.

“We are expecting to perform well in the last quarter of the current fiscal,” he said, adding the government has also taken various decision such as cut in corporate taxes and the recent announcement of investment in infrastructure sector.

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