POSCO was named the world’s most competitive steelmaker for the eighth consecutive year, the steelmaker said Tuesday.

World Steel Dynamics, a global steel industry researcher, put POSCO at the top of the world-class steelmaker ranking at the conference to discuss success strategies of the steel industry, which was held in New York on Tuesday.

The WSD ranked 36 steelmakers from around the world by analyzing 23 categories, including production capacity, profitability, technology innovation and financial stability.

According to POSCO, the company received the highest score in four categories, including human resources and technological innovation, to score an average of 7.91 points out of 10.

The company said its high-end world premium steel products, technological innovations and other efforts focusing its resources on the steel business were highly evaluated by the WSD.

POSCO was followed by the U.S.-based Nucor Corp., Japan’s Nippon Steel and Sumitomo Metal Corp., Brazil-based Gerdau and Russia’s Severstal.

Meanwhile, Korea’s second-largest steelmaker Hyundai Steel was ranked in the ninth place with 7.05 points.

Aside from the steelmakers’ competitiveness ranking, the WSD projected that the global steel industry would continue at the current slow pace for some time. The institution added that the global steel industry could recover some momentum from 2017 along with the recovery of the global economy. By Suk Gee-hyun (monicasuk@heraldcorp.com)