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Soung-Sik Cho, head of POSCO-India and
Senior Executive Vice President and Board
Member of POSCO and Ganatantra Ojha, Director
(Personnel), SAIL, signed the MoU on behalf
of POSCO and SAIL respectively.
SAIL Chairman S.K. Roongta and officials
of both POSCO & SAIL were present during
the ceremony held at SAIL's Corporate Office
in New Delhi.
The MoU states that the alliance partners
have agreed to cooperate in areas of business
such as information sharing in the area
of corporate strategy planning; exchange
of engineers, technicians and other professionals;
sharing of know-how and expertise in the
areas of development of mines and business
practices such as ERP, PI and Six Sigma;
joint usage of each other's existing marketing
and warehousing network; and coordination
in procurement of coking coal, nickel and
ferro-alloys and engagement of transportation
vessels.
Subject to further discussions, both companies
will also cooperate in areas relating to
joint R&D projects and any other projects
to be mutually agreed upon, the company
said in a statement issued in Bhubaneswar.
"This strategic alliance between the
two steel giants is a significant step towards
synergising their strengths while retaining
their identities in the rapidly consolidating
global steel industry," the statement
said.
POSCO and SAIL have been extending support
and cooperation to each other in different
fields. This alliance will not only reinforce
the relationship but also open an era of
large scale collaboration on strategic business
and commercial alignment.
The alliance partners will establish a joint
coordination group within two weeks to monitor,
guide and review the implementation process
of the MoU, which will be effective and
operative for three years initially, the
release said.
After signing an MoU with Orissa government
in June 2005, POSCO had established its
Indian arm, POSCO-India in August 2005 to
set up a 12 million tonne per annum capacity
mega steel plant in Jagatsinghpur district
of the State.
However, implementation of the Rs 51,000
crore project has been delayed to due to
people's opposition to displacement by the
proposed industry and Orissa government's
failure to provide it land for the steel
mill in time.
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