The chief executive officer and managing director of Tata Steel, T V Narendran has suggested to the government to focus on "cost of business" to make industries, particularly the manufacturing sector, more competitive.
"As the government has focused on ease of doing business, it should also focus on 'cost of business' to make industries, particularly the manufacturing sector, more competitive in the prevailing market," Narendran told reporters on Wednesday.
"We have been controlling the cost of business inside the work but outside the plant, it is not in our hands but the Central and state governments," the Tata Steel CEO said.
He said that such an initiative would certainly improve competitiveness of the domestic industries, particularly the manufacturing units.
Referring to the prevailing scenario in the steel sector, Narendran said that 2019 had been a difficult year for the steel sector and "the Tata Steel is not an exception as we have our own set of challenges to deal with".
However, Narendran said, "We have seen some signs of improvement in the last few months of 2019, which reflected with improved demand of steel shot up a bit and steel prices going up again."