ArcelorMittal to focus on emerging mkts

World’s largest steel maker ArcelorMittal will focus more on emerging markets, including India, and expects to return to the pre-crisis level by 2012, the company’s chief Lakshmi N Mittal has said.

“Growth will be a slow, progressive recovery. Maybe by 2012, we could come back to the pre-crisis level. Growth will only come from emerging markets. That is where we will focus,” India-born billionaire Mittal told The Wall Street Journal in an interview. “In the steel sector, we will start looking at Brazil and India.” Mittal, one of the world’s 10 richest people, said the worst is probably behind but the growth trajectory the company had been on since the merger of Arcelor SA and Mittal Steel Co in 2006 is not going to return anytime soon.