Tata Steel to decide on UK long product unit in 4-5 months.

Tata Steel will be taking a strategic decision regarding the UK long-product division in the next four-five months. 'We are looking for other buyers for this unit and also considering other options like resizing the business,' Koushik Chatterjee, group executive director-finance, told reporters after the company's annual general meeting held recently.

Last week, the company in its statement said its talks with the Klesh Group to sell the UK unit have discontinued after almost a year of negotiations.

Regarding the import duty hike on select metals, Tata Steel management said the duty will deter a lot of speculative imports but does not save the industry and the impact would be more sentiment based.

The finance ministry on wednesday raised import duty on select metals by 2.5 per cent.

'There needs to be more structural changes for the steel industry on the safe guard and anti-dumping front,' said Chatterjee.

BS