Tata Steel plans to sell factories in the UK

Tata Steel, Europe's second largest steel producer, has announced plans to sell its steel mills in Wales and England, threatening nearly 20,000 jobs.

The decision was taken at a meeting of the company's board on Tuesday in response to unprofitable plants, which over the past five years have generated more than 2 billion pounds in losses. Tata Steel is owned by the Indian giant Tata, which owns the Tata Motors car brand, among others.

Global steel overproduction, high energy prices, costs associated with the introduction of climate policies and high imports of cheap steel from China were noted as the main reasons for the financial problems of factories in the UK. The sale of facilities owned by Tata Steel is another loss to the British steel market after the Thai SSI closed the Redkar steel mill, excluding nearly 2,000. work places.

Tata, by far the largest manufacturing employer in the UK, has also consistently cut the number of people employed in the industry - more than 3,000 people have been laid off in the past nine months alone.

This is a challenging time for the staff at (largest plant) Port Talbot and for the UK. “We remain in close partnership with Tata and unions to ensure a long-term, sustainable future for the UK metals industry,” the UK and Wales government said in a joint statement released Wednesday after midnight.

“We are working closely with industry to find a way to ensure a long-term secure future, we have taken a number of steps ...” - said earlier Tuesday, government spokesman David Cameron, responding to criticism of labor unions and opposition that none of the ministers The British government did not go to Mumbai to lobby for the introduction of a procedural program before deciding to sell the plant.

The steelmakers say: "We need government assistance in resolving the crisis to persuade the European Commission to approve government aid for endangered steel mills."