POSCO Named "World's Most Competitive Steelmaker" for Fourth Consecutive Year
07/19/2013 - POSCO has been ranked as the “World’s Most Competitive Steelmaker” by World Steel Dynamics (WSD) for the fourth consecutive year.
WSD hosted the 28th Steel Success Strategies conference in New York City on 18–19 June, where the World’s Most Competitive Steelmakers rankings were announced.
POSCO again received high scores throughout the categories, receivinga final score of 7.73 (out of 10), ranking first among the companies evaluated. POSCO received high marks in employee skill levels, innovative technology led by FINEX and energy steel material production technology, expansion of high value-added products, and new market expansions.
POSCO CEO Chung Joonyang was invited as a highlight speaker after the announcement of the rankings. He spoke on “POSCO’s Growth Story and Future Strategy.”
Chung said he has strived for continuous growth through leading innovative activities and firmly establishing a global management system for the past four years, noting that global competitiveness with unique innovative technology and high value-added product development have allowed the company to maintain its competitiveness.
As mentioned in the conference theme, “Steel on the Precipice,” the world’s steel industry has a pressing need for a way to overcome the current recession. Conference delegates accordingly were focused on whether “POSCO’s Growth Story and Future Vision” would be able to suggest a new direction for the world’s steel industry.
Chung received many responses from the delegates when he noted that becoming a “loved company” involves establishing a healthy corporate ecosystem with POSCO’s unique concept of the stakeholders, SPICEE (Society/Partner/Investor/Customer/Employee/Environment), and grow and success together is POSCO’s future.
WSD has been analyzing the global steel market to find solutions to issues the industry faces each year, and announces competitive steelmaker rankings based on evaluation in 23 categories including production scale, profitability, technology innovation, price determinativeness, cost reduction, financial stability, and securing of materials.
NLMK of Russia and JSW of India, who ranked 2nd and 4th last year, were pushed aside by Severstal (2nd, Russia) which owns iron ore mines, and Nucor Corp. (3rd, U.S.), which utilizes low cost shale gas, marking the importance of cost competitiveness in an unclear global steel market environment.
During a Q&A session after his speech, Chung emphasized that as the world’s economy is in decline, the world’s steelmakers must come together against trade protectionism to resolve intensified trade disputes within the steel industry.
