UAE's RAKIA plans $2 billion aluminium smelter in Andhra Pradesh

NEW DELHI: Ras-Al-Khaimah Investment Authority (RAKIA), a provincial investment company of UAE, today said it would investment $2 billion to set up an aluminium smelter in Andhra Pradesh.

RAKIA officials, who signed a contract with the Andhra Pradesh Mineral Development Authority for bauxite reserves to feed the facility in Visakhapatnam, said that the plant would come up in the next two and a half years.

"We are looking at building a 1.5 million tons per annum capacity plant for extracting alumina and 3.5 lakh tons facility for aluminium," RAKIA CEO Khattar Massad said here.

The UAE company would require land of 1,100 acres of land the project and the Andhra Pradesh Industrial Development Authority was already in the process of buying land.

Massad said: "The investment would be funded through internal accruals and debt. There are presently no partners in the project, but we might look at partnering someone in the near future."