Wednesday, February 16 2005 14:58 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

Bhubaneswar: The South Korean Pohang Steel Company (POSCO) is expected to sign a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the Orissa Government about setting up a 12 million tonne capacity steel plant in Orissa within the next two months.

The South Korean team, which visited Orissa over the last three days and visited a possible site at Paradip port, has expressed its satisfaction over the progress of discussion and detailed technical data collected for enabling it to make the investment decision, official sources said today (Feb 16, 2005).

POSCO President Chang Oh Kang, who headed the team, called on Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik at New Delhi yesterday (Feb 15, 2005) and briefed him about their visit to Paradip.

Kang, who held discussions with Chief Secretary Subas Pani, other senior officials of the Steel and Mines and Industries departments besides those of Railways and State-run Infrastructure Development Corporation of Orissa Ltd (IDCOL) at Bhubaneswar, told the Chief Minister that Posco was very serious about the Orissa project and the same had been reviewed by the Posco board at their recent meeting.

Posco intended to invest over Rs 40,000 crore in the 12 million tonne steel project to be implemented in two phases.