New Delhi, Nov 02: Tata Steel, a flag ship of Ratan Tata Group, has firmed up its plan to set up chrome producing plant in South Africa with an investment of over Rs 250 crore as part of company's strategy to increase its global presence in steel and minerals. The company is in the process of getting clearances and hoping to start production in 2005, sources in Tata Steel (TISCO) said and added that in the first phase a plant with a capacity of 1.2 lakh tonnes would be set up.

Officials said that this is part of TISCO's plans to go global and besides this the company has chalked out a detailed strategy for making its operations global which also includes acquisition and merger both within the country and outside.
With a four million tonne steel plant in Jamshedpur , TISCO will add another million tonne in the capacity by September 2005 with an investment of about Rs 2,000 crore.
"We are planning to become seven million tonne plant by 2008 and work on additional two million tonne capacity would start after 2005," they added.
Going by the prevailing cost, TSICO would require Rs 3,500 crore to add two million tonne steel production capacity. Bureau Report