On June 26, WSD (World Steel Dynamics), the world’s leading steel industry analysis agency, announced POSCO as the world’s most competitive steelmaker at the 32nd Steel Survival Strategies event held in New York. As many as 650 employees from major steelmakers, consulting companies, and market research organizations were in attendance.
POSCO has been recognized as the leading company among the world’s top steelmakers for the past eight consecutive years. To note, POSCO received this year’s honor in the midst of difficult domestic and overseas market conditions due to last year’s global oversupply, tighter import regulations triggered by the spread of protectionism and internal financial restructuring.
The Steel Survival Strategies held discussions on current trends and future strategies of the global steel industry before the WSD announced the honor. Thirty-seven steel companies around the world were evaluated on 23 different criteria such as production scale, profitability, technological innovation, price competitiveness, cost reduction, financial soundness and raw material acquisition.
POSCO has topped the list a total of 13 times since 2002, when WSD first began its global competitiveness rankings, putting POSCO at the top of the rankings for the longest period of time.
POSCO came out on top with a perfect 10 in five categories: technological innovation, cost reduction, labor skills, restructuring and investment environment, putting the overall score at 8.31 points. The total was 0.26 points higher than last year, due to positive evaluations of POSCO’s solutions marketing activities, the expansion of high-value-added products as well as its financial restructuring.
Other notable companies on the list include Russian steelmaker Severstal (second place) for iron ore and coal mines, US steelmaker Nucor (third place) for their technological innovation and profitability, NLMK steelmaker (fourth place) for their iron ore, and NSSMC (fifth place) with positive evaluations in business diversification and restructuring.
Don’t miss any of the exciting stories from The Steel Wire – subscribe via email today.