DHAKA: Business Secretary Sajid Javid and Welsh First Minister Carwyn Jones have traveled to Mumbai for a Tata board meeting to discuss bids for Port Talbot and its other UK steel operations.

Four bids are understood to have been submitted for the business, which also has sites at Newport and Rotherham.

The bids come from management buyout vehicle Excalibur Steel, Sanjeev Gupta’s Liberty House, India’s JSW Steel and Greybull Capital.

Tata declined to comment on the bids, reports the BBC.

Earlier this year Tata decided to sell its loss-making UK steel operations, putting thousands of jobs under threat.

Excalibur and Liberty House are thought to be willing to work together, and Greybull recently bought Tata’s Scunthorpe plant.

Jones said at First Minister’s Questions on Tuesday that although the Excalibur bid had considerable technical expertise, it was yet to raise funding.

Meanwhile, hundreds of steelworkers will protest in London later to highlight the crisis facing their industry in the UK.

TUC general secretary Frances O’Grady will tell the event that the UK should follow the US and impose stiff import tariffs to stop China dumping steel on world markets.

‘Market economy access for China is the last thing British steelworkers need. The government must reverse course,’ she will say.

Angela Eagle, shadow business secretary, also called on ministers to stop ‘kowtowing to China’.

BDST: 1455 HRS, MAY 25, 2016
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