OREANDA-NEWS. Tata Steel has joined the select group of companies supplying material to PSA Peugeot Citroen to be awarded with Core Supplier status by the French car manufacturer.

Jean-Baptiste Formery, executive director, purchasing vehicle components, at PSA Peugeot Citroen, made the award at a presentation at Tata Steel’s Ijmuiden plant in the Netherlands last week.

Speaking to employees, Mr Formery said that a Core Supplier needed to display the three key attributes of being champions in their product lines, being internationally established and achieving excellence in industrial performance. He described Tata Steel as “clearly a very good example of this category of supplier”.

Mr Formery spoke of the importance of suppliers fully participating in every step of the company’s strategy and contributing to its success. He described the ambition of PSA Peugeot Citroen to become a global player, with 50 percent of its sales outside Europe by 2015. Mr Formery said that PSA’s recent Global Alliance with General Motors represented a real opportunity for growth for strategic and core suppliers.

Responding to Mr Formery, Jaap Piso, director of sales and marketing, sector automotive, for Tata Steel in Europe, said: “This award is the culmination of more than 30 years of close collaboration and partnership with PSA Peugeot Citroen. We are delighted to have been honoured with Core Supplier status in recognition of this mutually beneficial relationship and we look forward to it continuing to benefit both companies for many years to come.

“The ambition of our customer to grow its business globally exactly aligns with our own aims for growth. As Mr Formery has acknowledged, we are already contributing to PSA’s success in France and Spain and are studying our support in the fast developing markets of Russia, Brazil and China. And we are playing our part in improving the environmental credentials of PSA’s car range with steels for light weighting that contribute to reduced CO2 emissions.

“As we move forward, PSA Peugeot Citroen has the full commitment of all Tata Steel employees to continue to meet the high standards expected of companies with Core Supplier status. We feel privileged to be in this select category of suppliers and are excited by the prospect of partnering with our customer as they continue to extend their global reach.”