MUMBAI (Commodity Online): It seems India’s latest budget has impacted the shares of steel companies the most in the past few days. With India playing a big role in steel consumption the budget which imposed an excise duty hike on steel, shares of steel companies saw a major upheaval.
SAIL and Tata Steel hiked prices by up to Rs 2,000 a tonne following the duty hike. Tata Steel has increased prices of long steel products mainly used in the construction and infrastructure sectors by Rs 1,000 a tonne and that of flat steel products used by the whitegoods industry by about Rs 2,000 a tonne.
SAIL increased prices of its products by up to Rs 600 a tonne to pass on the excise duty burden to consumers.
Partially rolling back the fiscal stimulus in Budget 2010-2011, the government raised excise duty by 2-10 per cent across the board.
To spur economic activities, the government had earlier initiated massive spending programmes and slashed duties from
December 2008 in three stages following the global financial crisis that began in September same year.
According to a report in India’s business daily Economic Times, following the hike in excise duty, shares of SAIL have climbed 8.73 per cent to Rs 226.40 from its close on Budget Day while that of Tata Steel rallied 7.14 per cent to Rs 607.40.
Meanwhile, Tata Steel and oil major ONGC have been named among the 50 most admired companies by a US magazine.
The magazine has named Apple as the world’s most admired company for the third year in a row. The technology major is followed by internet giant Google at the second spot.
Among the most admired firms in the Asia-Pacific region, Tata Steel has cornered the 21st position while Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC) is ranked 47th.
The list of 50 admired companies in the region is topped by Japanese auto maker Toyota Motor, followed by South Korea's Samsung Electronics. Japanese electronics giant Sony is ranked third.
The rankings are based on many factors, including innovation, people management, use of corporate assets, financial soundness, long-term investment and global competitiveness.
Meanwhile, other companies named in the Asia-Pacific list are Posco (8), Huawei Technologies (10), Hyundai Motor (11), Acer (38), Hitachi (38) and Fujitsu (47).
