Worst behind us, pre-recession demand in 2-3 years: Mittal

Emphasising that the worst is over for the global steel industry, ArcelorMittal chief L N Mittal today said that he sees "pre-recession" demand to resurface in the next 2-3 years.     

The NRI billionaire also asserted that the steel maker is bullish on India plans and committed to the investments there.     

"For (the) pre-recession demand to come back, I give 2-3 years...Everyone believes and we also believe that the decline has stopped.     

"The worst is behind us and the question which we are asking ourselves is what is going to be the shape of recovery," Mittal, who is the Chairman and CEO of the world's largest steel company, told CNBC TV18 in an interview.     

ArcelorMittal is committed to its proposed Rs 1-lakh crore investment in India, to set up two 12-million tonnes per annum steel mills in the state of Jharkhand and Orissa.     

"I am very optimistic about India. I am in fact bullish about India. We are committed to India, we will invest in India for our steel companies," Mittal noted.      

The company had earlier this year said the commercial operations of its proposed steel plants would be delayed by at least two years to 2014.     

Earlier this year, ArcelorMittal had said the firm would go slow on its greenfield expansion, mergers and acquisition plans in the wake of the prevailing economic scenario.

Hit hard by the slump in steel demand and the consequent fall in prices, ArcelorMittal had posted losses in the last quarter of the previous fiscal and the first quarter of the current financial year.     

The company has resorted to cost-cutting by slashing jobs and trimming down production to stay afloat amid the global economic crisis, which started last year. The company is now witnessing some signs of revival in demand for its products.     

"ArcelorMittal, as I said is doing much better in the sense from where we started in October crisis. We are seeing some of the demand reviving though we are still operating at 50 per cent of our capacity," he said.     

Maintaining that the steel sector undergoes and cyclical depression over a period of time, Mittal said that the industry did not anticipate a global crisis of this magnitude to have occurred.    

"Everyone realises that commodities are cyclical businesses so we are not immune to cyclity or sick-cyclic nature of the business. But at the same time, we were not expecting a global crisis of this magnitude and I believe that no industry or no sector can escape from this crisis," he added.