POSCO's Global Run
Its business expands to Bengal Bay in India and China for sustained growth

POSCO Chairman Lee Ku-taek said in his new year's address that the steel giant made a great stride in business last year with its advance into India to build a steel plant, taking an energetic first step to become a global POSCO. POSCO shares were listed for the first time on the Tokyo Stock Exchange last year. The Six-Sigma program has made progress in the company's effort to reform and restructure its organization.
The steel giant enjoyed outstanding returns on its operations during the past 2 to 3 years, but it is headed toward a downturn in business and it is difficult to measure the depth of the decline due to changes in the competitive paradigm in the world steel industry. The nationalism of the countries that have natural resources for steel shows signs of the emergence of the new competitors, coupled with the growth of the new steel markets. China has become an unavoidable threat to our steel industry earlier than expected, owing to the fast expansion of its steel-producing facilities in the past several years and becoming an exporter of steel.
Saying that crisis could be an opportunity for people who face it wisely, he noted that the company is at the crossroad and we have to accept the difficult moment as a valuable training in the way of becoming a century old business concern. He said the company has to make daring and speedy moves to find challenging roads lay ahead of becoming a global POSCO. He said they created something out of nothing in the past, but now is the time when they should produce something better from something. "We have to secure global competitiveness this year,"the chairman asserted, adding that they have to focus on gaining the leadership in technology to produce competitive new strategic steel products that could dominate the market.
POSCO should mobilize every sector of its operation, including production, marketing, and research as low production cost should be a big support for making POSCO competitive.
Investments in India and China are part of POSCO's long-term plan based on a dream to make the company a global concern. Particularly, the construction of a blast furnace steel mill in India is a project unprecedented in the history of steel making in the world. The gigantic project will be a success falling back on the challenging spirit and passion of the founding generations who created a myth in the Pohang and Gwangyang bays and revive them and move them to India's Bengal Bay. The chairman continued that the steel company needs an organizational set up to back up its ambitious undertakings. We need our own working methods that are superior to others and can be used any where in the world. He said the company needs a culture to create daily innovations and practice it every day so that language and thoughts stemming from the six-sigma program could take a deep root in society.
He said we have the tradition that when the going gets tough we get together and pool our energy, along with the self-confidence to get the things done. We have to make this year the initial year for taking a big step for becoming a global concern as the extension of POSCO's enviable history. "Let's try to achieve our objectives for this year one by one so that when we meet together next year, we could talk about next year's plans with hope and pleasure." "I believe in you and our future; I will do my best so that I could be a model for all of you,"he said.
In the meantime, President Kang Chang-ho, in his New Year speech, said he agreed with what the chairman said in his speech and called on officers and employees of the giant steel mill to follow the chairman's leadership to make POSCO step up in their effort to make it a global concern. nw

POSCO Chairman & CEO Lee Ku-taek

POSCO's steel plant