Bharuch, Gujarat, India July 26 (CNA) China Steel Corp., the largest steel maker in Taiwan, is planning to kick off commercial production at its plant located in India by the end of this year.
China Steel invested US$236 million in building the electrical steel plate production site, located in Gujarat province, western India, and the site is 95 percent completed. Trial production is scheduled to begin in September.
About 100 staffers, including engineers and technicians, sent by China Steel to the India plant are working hard to push the project further, the company said.
According to Wu Yung-chen, a sales manager of the plant in India, the new production base is expected to roll out 200,000 metric tons of steel products a year and most of the production will be sold in India, with the remainder to be shipped to the Middle East and Europe.
Electrical steel plates are used in a wide range of manufacturing in India, including that of home appliances, industrial motors, cars, power generation equipment and uninterruptible power systems.
China Steel said demand for electrical steel plates in India is on the rise, and that the new plant has good potential to grow.
In January 2012, China Steel signed an agreement with Gujarat Industrial Development Corp. to launch the investment project. The Taiwanese firm started construction of the production site on 60 hectares of land located in an industrial park in the Indian province.
China Steel said the company hopes its investments in India will encourage other Taiwanese steel manufacturers to go to the South Asian country and create a Taiwanese steel production cluster in the fast growing economy.
(By Ho Horn-ru and Frances Huang)
