India is capable of sustaining strong demand for steel – Tata Steel CFO

Tata Steel believes that India will continue to be a growing market for steel. The company’s Chief Financial Officer, Kushik Chatterjee, spoke about this in an interview with The Telegraph India.

According to him, Tata Steel’s strategy in India is to increase its market share in selected segments by expanding its product range and value-added services.

“We have organic growth opportunities that allow us to expand capacity to over 40 million tons per year, as well as additional prospects for further development in connection with plans to enter the Maharashtra market,” the CFO of Tata Steel said.

Chatterjee noted that the company announced these plans in December 2025 and is currently working on their implementation. Tata Steel’s consolidated annual capital expenditures amount to approximately 20,000 crore rupees (roughly $2.1 billion), of which over 60–65% is allocated to India, which gives an idea of the priorities in capital allocation.

Steel demand in India is growing by 7–8% annually, he noted, and this momentum will continue over the next two decades thanks to infrastructure development and a focus on new growth sectors such as data centers, shipbuilding, and defense manufacturing.

The CFO of Tata Steel considers steel a foundational material for any economy despite all geopolitical upheavals; therefore, in his view, countries without a strong domestic steel industry are at risk of losing their sovereignty.

The conflict in the Middle East has caused a significant cost shock to the Indian economy, with second- and third-order consequences that will take a long time to overcome. At Tata Steel, scenario planning, risk-based decision-making, supply chain diversification, and an active hedging strategy for commodities and currencies have already become the norm to mitigate the consequences.

As for the outlook for Tata Steel’s European divisions for the 2026/2027 fiscal year, the company continues to work on cost management and commercial strategies in both the Netherlands and the UK. Thanks to improved market prices, the steelmaker intends to continue improving its financial performance over the next 12 months. Geopolitical risks, which will affect energy prices and steel demand, remain a key point of concern.

As a reminder, Tata Steel reported lower-than-expected profits in the fourth quarter of the 2025/2026 fiscal year (January–March 2026) due to rising raw material prices and one-time costs associated with the restructuring of its Dutch division.