| The new shipping company will cater to dry-bulk and break-bulk cargo. |
| The agreement was signed at Jamshedpur today between Hiromitsu Kuramoto, representative director and senior management corporate officer, NYK Line, and B Muthuraman, managing director, Tata Steel. |
| Tata Steel officials were not available for comments. |
| The NYK group operates approximately 700 major ocean vessels, as well as fleets of planes, trains and trucks. |
| The agreement will benefit Tata Steel in two ways. It will bring down the logistics and transportation cost significantly, while making NYK's huge shipping line accessible. |
| Tata Steel had already announced that it would like to have control over logistics, in the wake of its massive expansion plans. More so, since the company had adopted the de-integrated model. |
| The strategy entailed having primary steel making in countries rich in iron ore, coal and gas with finishing facilities and value addition in developed and growing markets like India, China, Europe, the US and south-east Asia. |
| In fact, at the media conference to announce the Tata-Corus deal, responding to queries, Muthuraman had said the deal could take advantage of the proposed shipping initiative. |
| As part of its logistics push, Tata Steel is also building an all-weather deep water port in Orissa "� the Dhamra project, in partnership with L&T. |
| The port will handle bulk cargo with a maximum capacity of 25 million tonne. |
| Other Tata group companies also have their sights on the global arena and, hence, control over logistics makes immense sense. |
| The joint venture will not be the first association with NYK for the group, which already had a joint venture company "� Tata NYK. Tata NYK was also a 50:50 joint venture, between Tata Tea and NYK. |
| In 2001, Tata Tea decided to sell 40 per cent of its holding in favour of NYK, as part of its restructuring exercise to focus on core operations. |
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