Iron and Steel have been the foundation of Britain’s industrial revolution. And with the likely shutdown of Port Talbot’s steelworks, the wheels have come full circle.
A government spokesperson on Monday gave a veiled threat to India’s largest multinational Tata group not to shutdown the Talbot plant in view of continuing and increasing losses.
On Tuesday, the final decision was to be made by the 11-member Tata Steel board, led by chairman Cyrus Mistry.
The site is losing a reported £1m a day which is not sustainable. Tata’s European operations had developed a turnaround plan that would require the company to invest £100 million to return to profitability in South Wales.
The Indian Financial Press has called on Tata to pull out and focus on any investment available that’s more beneficial elsewhere.
Sir Jamsetji Tata founded the Tata Iron and Steel Company way back in the last decade of the 19th Century and the production began in 1905 at Jamshedpur.
Earlier when Sir Jamsetji was buying machinery, equipment in England, a top Englishman vowed that “He will eat all the rails himself produced by the Tatas.”
Some prophecy, some reality!
I am glad no British media has stooped so low to claim that Tatas are taking revenge when the British steel industry is almost dying. The reason for this is obvious. The dumping of the cheap Chinese steel imports in the UK and Europe has created the catastrophe.
