Tata Steel MD terms new year challenging

Tata Steel Managing Director H M Nerurkar today said the new year would be equally challenging as last year as the global recession is still continuing.

"The economy is still pulling out of recession. Last year was extremely challenging. Such crisis we had never witnessed in our career and it was worse than Great Depression," Nerurkar said at a new year's ceremony here.

The recession could not affect India as badly as other developed nations in Europe for government's initiatives and strong banking system in the country, he said.

Tata Steel Managing Director regretted that mineral-rich Jharkhand could not progress to its expectation due to political instability.

"The new state government is expected to provide economic stability and bring the state back on the road to progress," he said.

Nerurkar said the global economy was slowly picking up but the steel sector was not as booming as 2007.

Expressing satisfaction over the consumption of steel in India, he said, "The pressure on the prices would be there despite over-production."