CHAIRMAN'S STATEMENT
AT THE 18TH ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING
27th September, 2003

I, on behalf of my fellow colleagues on the Board and on my own behalf, warmly welcome you all to this 18th Annual General Meeting. The Annual Report for the Financial Year 2002-2003 is already with you for quite some time, which I am sure you have studied by now, and therefore please allow me to take the same as read.

This has been a good year for the steel industry in general.
The global and domestic steel industry saw a sharp recovery during the year. World-wide consumption of steel climbed to 86% of global capacity, and price realization remained robust. Imports by China, the world's largest consumer of steel accounting for a quarter of the world's consumption, drove much of the increase in global demand, fuelled by its economic growth. China's steel demand will continue to be a matter of worldwide significance for the industry.

India's steel industry received a boost from the overall rebounded of Indian industry, arising from the increase in infrastructure spending by the Government, growth in the automobile as well as appliance sectors, and higher demand from overseas markets.

As reported in the last AGM that we will start reaping benefits of the improving steel markets from January -March 2003, I am pleased to inform you that we did start reaping the benefits from that period.

The international market is a mixed basket of steel consumption. While US continues to have high import duty to protect its domestic market, the European Countries have poor growth rate. China, are the largest producer and consumer of steel with uncertain imports.