TATA group owned TATA Steel reported 14 per cent decline in sales in the third quarter of current financial year as compared to sales during same period last year. It indicates the impact of global slowdown on the steel sector. Almost all economic segments are facing the heat of global financial crisis and gearing up for strict measures to deal with the situation.

Steel demand declined following production cut announced by auto manufactures and poor demand in the real estate sector. TATA recently announced production cuts to stop piling of inventory. Experts believe more production cuts may be announced in coming day following the fears of more severity of slowdown.

TATA Steel witnessed 27 per cent growth in sales of long products which are used in construction industry. But it failed to heal the overall growth rate for Q3. Hot metal and crude steel production also showed increase of 23 per cent at 1.70 million tones.

Crude steel production increased 17 per cent at 1.50 million tones. The recently commissioned blast furnace is working at more than assigned capacity and producing over 8,500 tonnes a day for many days.

Meanwhile, the company has decided to go for its expansion plans. It would increase the capacity of its Jamshedpur facility to10 million tonnes by 2010.