By DPA
Frankfurt : Steel magnate Lakshmi Mittal said he is optimistic about the economic outlook of 2008 despite the turbulence in world financial markets triggered by the US housing crisis.
“Uptil now, the crisis has only affected housing construction in the United States and to a much lesser extent production industries in general,” he told Germany’s Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung daily in an interview published Thursday.
Despite fears the crisis might spread, Mittal said, “I see no reason to revise downwards the positive forecasts for steel consumption in South America, Europe, the Middle East and Far East.”
Even in the United States producers could look forward to increasing their sales, said the board chairman and main shareholder of the world’s biggest steel producer, Arcelor-Mittal.
“Many processors and dealers are rebuilding their vastly depleted stocks,” said the Indian-born executive, whose company produces three times more steel than its nearest rival Nippon Steel.
Mittal said he expected the flood of Asian steel imports on the European market to recede next year, due mainly to increased prices and a complaint in Brussels about Asian producers selling below cost.
“Next year we will see steep price rises, especially for iron ore and coking coal. When this happens it will in all likelihood dampen the export drive of the Chinese producers,” he said.