SAIL eyes 17 MT sales in FY17; targets defence, aerospace

New Delhi: India's largest steel maker SAIL is targeting sales of 17 million tonnes (MT) in the current fiscal with focus on deriving 70 per cent of the total figure from the northern and eastern regions of the country.

The Maharatna company, which aims to take the sales figure further to 20 MT in 2017-18 fiscal, has also set its sights on increasing its presence in sectors such as defence and aerospace.

"SAIL has recently charted a set of goals for the company under new Chairman and Managing Director P K Singh. This includes increasing sales to 17 MT in 2016-17 and subsequently 20 MT in 2017-18," a source said.

In the first nine months of 2015-16, it achieved saleable steel sales of 8.33 MT. In 2014-15, it was 11.71 MT.

Confirming the development, a government official said that to achieve this target, the state-run steel giant will up its penetration in the northern and eastern regions in the country and increase its retail sales to 15 percent of the total finished steel sales.

"SAIL will also strengthen its customer base through increased efforts for customer retention and interaction. Besides, efforts are being made to increase its exposure in defence, aerospace and nuclear power sectors," he added.

The company has already earmarked around Rs 6,000 crore this fiscal on various modernisation and expansion programmes as well as on research and development (R&D) initiatives. SAIL had spent about Rs 4,483 crore as capital expenditure in 2015-16.

The money will go to energy saving methods, enriching product mix, pollution control, developing mines and collieries to meet higher requirement of key inputs and to introduce customer centric processes.