South Korean steelmaker POSCO on November 19 announced expansion plans locally and overseas, saying it would build a 1.4 billion dollar plant at home in addition to a new plant in India. The company said it would invest 1.6 trillion won (1.4 billion dollars) in the plant at Gwangyang city on the south coast, with production capacity of 3.3 million tonnes a year of hot-rolled coil steel by January 2014.
It will also build a plant in the western Indian state of Maharashtra by December 2013 with a 1.8 million-tonne-a-year capacity for cold-rolled coil.
When the Gwangyang plant is completed, POSCO's annual output capacity will rise to 26.84 million tonnes a year of hot-rolled coil, from 23.54 million. The company said Indian demand for cold-rolled steel products for automobiles and home appliances is expected to rise by more than 12 percent annually through 2018.
POSCO's earlier plans to build a 12-billion dollar steel plant in India's eastern Orissa state have been rebuffed by an Indian environmental panel.
Last month three out of four members of the government panel probing the environmental impact of the plant said clearances for the project should be scrapped.
The South Korean firm said it still wants to go ahead with the project. Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh will make the final decision.
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