Naveen Patnaik’s Japan Visit: Nippon Steel President’s Big Announcement For Odisha

Tokyo/Bhubaneswar: Nippon Steel president Eiji Hashimoto on Tuesday said that his company is planning to build the largest and latest steel plant in Odisha with 30-MTPA production capacity.

He made this announcement during the meeting with Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik, who is on a weeklong business tour of Japan, in Tokyo this evening. The CM also invited Hashimoto and his team to visit Odisha and said that the projects in the pipeline will help a large number of people in the state. 

Notably, AMNS India, a joint venture of Arcellor Mittal and Nippon Steel, has signed two MoUs with Odisha to establish two steel mills. In 2021, the Odisha government inked a pact with AMNS India for a 12 million tonne per annum (MTPA) integrated steel plant in Kendrapada district with an investment of Rs 50,000 crore. A month after the Make in Odisha conclave in December last year, the Odisha government approved the proposal of ArcelorMittal Nippon Steel (AMNS) India Ltd to set up a 7 MTPA steel plant in Jagatsinghpur at an investment of Rs 38,000 crore.

The government is also scheduled to sign another MoU with AMNS for setting up of a high-performance gymnastics centre at Kalinga Stadium, official sources said.

AMNS India currently has a 12 MTPA pellet plant at Paradip, which is the country’s largest single location pellet complex, an eight MTPA beneficiation facility in Keonjhar and a 250-km slurry pipeline from Keonjhar to Paradip.

On Wednesday, the CM is scheduled to have one-on-one meetings with Japanese companies. The state government will also host the Odisha Business Meet 2023, which is expected to be attended by over 200 industrialists and investors from across Japan and the Indo-Pacific region. The CM will address the investors and showcase the vast existing and emerging business opportunities in Odisha. In the evening, he will hold an interactive meeting with the Odia Diaspora in Japan, an official release said.

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The following day, the state delegation will make a factory visit to the Kimitsu Steel Works, a steel plant complex extensively using high-end technology, and the R&D centre of Nippon Steel Corporation.

According to the Chief Minister’s Office, the delegation will also hold a round-table discussion in Kyoto on opportunities for collaboration between Japan and Odisha in the tourism sector, focusing on Buddhist and eco-tourism related sites in the state.

Besides Industries Minister Pratap Keshari Deb, Chief Secretary P K Jena and other senior officers, a business delegation from Odisha, representing steel, aluminium, textiles, food and sea-food processing, green hydrogen and green ammonia sectors, is also accompanying Naveen.

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