Chinese FDI comes with tonnes of money

NEW DELHI: In what could be the biggest ever Chinese FDI in India, Sinosteel plans to invest Rs 16,000 crore to build a 5 million tonne (MT) greenfield steel plant in Jharkhand and would sign a MoU with the state government next month on the same.

"We will submit our project proposal to the Jharkhand government within 10 days and sincerely expect to sign a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) by June to build a 5 MT steel plant in the mineral-rich province of India at an investment of $4 billion (about Rs 16,000 crore)," Sinosteel India Managing Director Hongseng Wang told PTI.

Sinosteel would fund the entire $4 billion investment out of its own accruals.

He said the state-run MECON has been entrusted with carrying out the feasibility study for the plant, which is likely to be located within 40 kms of Ranchi and the firm is expected to submit its report soon.

The company would need around 4,000 acres of land for the plant.

Ruling out any problem on land acquisition, Wang argued that the Plant would provide direct employment to 3,000 people and the villagers would definitely appreciate the value of the plant within their vicinity.

The Sinosteel chief said the proposed plant would require around 200 metric tonnes of ore annually for the plant for which talks would be held with the Jharkhand government to ensure iron ore linkage.


He said his company was ready to proceed ahead even if it was not given mines and would source it from the market. However, he reasoned that since this was a big project for Jharkhand, the state government should facilitate it.