The CEO of Ternium focused the attention of the delegates at the Fiftieth Latin American Congress of Steel, held in Quito. Ternium's CEO took the opportunity to see real-time feedback from attendees.

During his presentation as a panelist of the Congress of Latin American Iron and Steel Ilafa 50, held in Quito, Daniel Novegil spoke to 650 delegates, who discussed their vision of the outlook for global steel market, highlighting the potential for industrial development in the region, based in competitive advantages over other geographic areas of the planet.

"The world is recovering from the crisis but in different degrees. Such recovery is led by emerging countries like China and India. We believe that Latin America is well positioned in the market to meet costs and very competitive scenarios, hence the challenge will be to sustain long-term industrial development”.

Novegil described the scenario as none other than a global market whose apparent steel consumption will fall 9% this year and 2010 is likely to return to 2008 levels. A phenomenon of excess capacity of above 600 million tons acts as a structural threat to the industry threatening with more volatile prices and raising questions about the sustainability of recovery. "By 2010 developed countries will have a level of demand for steel similar to the 80 and 90, while Latin America will return to 2005 levels.”

"In 2008 Latin America and China had the same gross domestic product (GDP), but when you compare the GDP per capita is twice ours, however, apparent steel consumption in China is four times higher. It appears that our region has a potential for industrial development and infrastructure that we exploit and transform into employment, education, research, technology and social mobility ".

Fifty years of Ilafa

The Congress provided a framework for holding the 50th anniversary of the Institute, bringing together several former presidents and leading authorities of past decades. This time, it was announced the appointment of André Johanpeter (president of Gerdau) as assignee of Ilafa in 2009-2010, and the appointment of Daniel Novegil (CEO of Ternium) as first vice president.

The Institute also announced the appointment of the city of Buenos Aires to host the next congress Ilafa 51, made to coincide with the Bicentennial of Argentina.

The appointment of Quito allowed to hear the Nobel laureate in economics Paul Krugman, who compared the current global crisis with 1930 in speed, range and depth, while the world predicted that it would leave in 5 years. "I think Latin America is among the regions leading the recovery." Similarly, Luis Alberto Moreno, president of the Inter-American Development Bank regarded the region as well positioned in international reserves, debt level, strong financial system and good level of economic activity.

As in previous years, the steel market analyst Peter Marcus addressed the Congress cataloging of difficult stage in 2010-2011, but expected to recover in 2012 with better prices and margins, and some slowing in consumption of raw materials by China at that time.

Real-time Reviews

Those attending the conference the CEO of Ternium had the opportunity to actively participate through a digi-vote system, answering the questions formulated in the room Novegil and were immediately processed and presented on screen. "The interesting thing is that we can compare your answers today with last year," said Daniel Novegil before applying this type of interactive communication.