Osaka Steel Aims Profit Growth under New Midterm Plan to FY2008

Osaka Steel, Osaka based electric furnace steel maker, announced the 3-year management plan to fiscal 2008 ending March 2009 on Thursday. The firm aims 88 billion yen of net sales, 12.8 billion yen of operating profit and 13 billion yen of recurring profit in fiscal 2008. The firm deals with the decrease of margin and demand and aims to increase its earnings by the sales expansion of specialty products, the capital investment and the operation improvement.Osaka Steel advanced the reinforcement of cost competitiveness, the improvement of the selling prices and the financial condition under the 4th mid-term business plan for fiscal 2003-2005. The firm could already achieve the goal of the mid-term plan when the market price of shape steel and small-sized steel bar, the main products of the firm, increased sharply and the firm put the price maintenance above the sales volume.Osaka Steel plans to output 1.53 million tonnes of crude steel and to ship 430,000 tonnes of slab and 1.16 million tonnes of steel products in fiscal 2008. The profit seems to decrease by 8 billion yen in fiscal 2008 from fiscal 2005 with the margin shrink and the demand decline if the firm does not take any measures. However, the firm aims to increase the profit by 500 million yen toward fiscal 2008 by the sales expansion and by 3.8 billion yen by the capital investment and the operation improvement.