ArcelorMittal may start work on India projects in 2011

July 30, 2010: Pinning hopes on developing economies for its future growth, ArcelorMittal has said that it expects to start work on one of its Rs 1.3 lakh crore India projects in early 2011.

"We believe that in 2011 in one of the projects we will break the ground, we don't know which one...it is our hope that it should be in the first quarter or the second quarter," ArcelorMittal Chairman and CEO Lakshmi N Mittal said over phone after the announcement of the company's second quarter results yesterday.

Incidentally, ArceloreMittal announced lower than expected net profits of $1.7 billion for the second quarter, while admitting this was the effect of the slowdown in Europe and a demand dip in China.

"The impact would be more in third quarter (ending September)... we expect India to grow may be at 10%... we are pegging our hopes on the developing economies for business growth," he said.

ArcelorMittal, the world's largest steel maker, accounting for 6% of the global production, announced plans to set up projects in Jharkhand in 2005 and in Orissa a year later. In June this year, it signed an MoU with Karnataka government for a Rs 30,000-crore steel project.

He was optimistic about the Karnataka project, for which he signed an MoU with the state government last month saying, "We are very satisfied with the progress we are making in Karnataka."

Source: The Economic Times