KL to build steel plant

KL to build steel plant

KUALA LUMPUR (AFP): A Chinese company is to partner firms from
Hong Kong and Singapore to build a giant steel plant in
Malaysia's southern Johore state, a deal spurned two years ago by
Taiwan, officials said Saturday.

"Johore has found a new foreign investor for the project. But
we cannot identify the name of the Chinese corporation as
discussions are still ongoing," said an official from the Johore
chief minister's office.

The proposed rolled steel mill plant, to be built on an 800-
hectare (2,000 acre) site, is expected to cost 8.3 billion
ringgit (US$3.32 billion) and will to produce 5,000 tons of flat
steel a year.

Taiwan's state-owned China Steel Corporation (CSC) was to have
taken a 40 percent interest in the mammoth venture that would
have been the single largest investment in Malaysia, and the
largest ever made by Taiwan.

But the Taiwanese authorities decided in 1992 to suspend the
investment, saying parliament had not allocated funds for the
project, officials here said.

"But this time we are confident the planned rolled steel mill
will take off," the Johore official said following local
newsreports that one of China's "super enterprises" was keen to
invest six billion ringgit ($2.4 billion) in the proposed
project.