RINL reports 14 per cent growth in sales, production

Rashtriya Ispat Nigam Ltd (RINL), Visakhapatnam Steel Plant's flagship company, achieved an all-time high sales turnover of Rs10,425 crore for the year 2007-08, surpassing the previous best of Rs9,151 crore recorded last year (2006-07) – a growth of 14 per cent year-on-year.

Domestic sales also registered the highest turnover of Rs9,869 crore which is more than 13 per cent over the previous year, with a turnover of Rs8,707 crore, the public sector company said in a release.

RINL/VSP also surpassed the rated capacity for the seventh consecutive year in all its production units. Production of 'value added steel' rose to19 lakh tonnes – the highest since inception with a 74 per cent growth over 2006-07. This has to certain extent affected the overall production due to careful planning and production of requisite value added quality, it said.

Despite abnormal increase in raw material cost, VSP is expected to post a net profit after tax of about Rs1,850 crore in 2007-08 as compared to Rs1,363 crore in 2006-07.

The emphasis has been to enhance production and sale of value added steel, rebars and to increase the market share in Andhra Pradesh and South for better net sales realisation, it said.

VSP sold about 18.27 lakh tonnes of value-added steel in 2007-08, which is 64 per cent higher than the sales volume of 11.11 lakh tonnes in 2006-07. Also 7.21 lakh tonnes of steel was sold in project sales for the year 2007-08, which is 30 per cent higher than the sales volume of 5.55 lakh tonnes achieved in 2006-07.

Sale of 'Rebars' used in infrastructure increased by seven per cent. Share of sales in south and Andhra Pradesh increased from 52.4 per cent in 2006-07 to 54.5 per cent in 2007-08.

Under the rural marketing scheme, VSP reported sales of 35,000 tonnes in 2007-08, an impressive growth of 235 per cent over the 10,000 tonnes achieved in 2006-07.