FY 2020-21 will be remembered as an inflection point in contemporary history. On the one hand, it upended 'normal life' and 'business as usual'. On the other, it spotlighted the resilience of human spirit, the ability of scientific rigour to address challenges with speed, and the ubiquity of digital in modern society. In many ways, the year brought to life the need for collaborative thinking and courage in approach while striving for better.
JSW Steel's journey over the years, and specifically in FY 2020-21, mirrors this phenomenon. The sudden slowdown coming close to the heels of one of the largest capex programmes in the history of the Indian steel industry had the potential of upsetting our best-laid plans.
Yet, our nimbleness in ramping up production capacities post reopening, increasing exports, manufacture of value-added products and focus on cost reduction saw us leverage both halves of the year to our advantage. In a year where iron ore availability in India was a challenge, our foresight and execution discipline saw us operationalise seven newly acquired mines, to ensure that our plants kept producing high-quality steel, leading to a 96% capacity utilisation in March 2021.
In line with our vision to reach 45 MTPA by 2030-31, we acquired multiple strategic assets that give us geographic and product advantages. And, we scaled up our brand-building and digitalisation efforts to create a sharper, smarter, and more customer-centric organisation.
But, this is not just about the here and now. It is also about the tomorrow and beyond. Therefore, we set ourselves ambitious targets across 17 sustainability focus areas to emerge as one of the most planet and people-friendly steel companies in the future.
We scaled up our brand-building and digitalisation efforts to create a sharper, smarter, and more customer-centric organisation.
We have announced an investment of ~US$3.4 billion to further expand our capacities in line with India's needs and our ability to rapidly scale enables this.
With this, we will reach a steelmaking capacity of 37.5 MTPA by FY 2024-25 including 1.5 MTPA capacity in the USA and entities under joint control. We are creating new benchmarks in product development, pivoting our R&D efforts to be more customer-focused, and increasing our efforts to be a preferred employer while retaining a strong commitment to social causes.
We turned the challenge thrown at us by FY 2020-21 on its head and made it our best ever year, by being agile, responsible, and futuristic in our thinking.
At JSW Steel, we remain committed to creating a "Better today, Stronger tomorrow."
#BetterEveryday
