Bangkok Post reported that POSCO, South Korea's largest steelmaker, plans to strengthen its presence in Southeast Asia's growing automotive industry by spending USD 600 million to build new galvanizing plants in Thailand and Indonesia.
Mr Kim Sun-won, president of the Bangkok based POSCO-South Asia Company Limited said that POSCO is committing USD 300 million for each plant.
In Thailand, the company recently secured a site near Rayong, the centre of Thailand's automotive industry, for a continuous galvanizing line for automotive sheets, with an annual capacity of 400,000 tonnes.
It plans to start an environmental impact assessment next month, with the goal of a fully operational plant by the end of 2015. The focus will be on domestic sales with some exports.
Thailand rolled out 2.45 million vehicles last year, a 68% leap over 2011.
Of these, 1.44 million vehicles sold domestically, surpassing the South Korean market for the first time. Exports topped 1 million, coming in at 1.01 million vehicles.
Mr Kim said that "With this investment, we expect to create 400 jobs in the area, directly and indirectly."
Because the auto industry in Asean is so robust, POSCO expects to achieve sustainable growth here.
The integrated steel mill in Indonesia will have an annual capacity of 3 million tonnes and is scheduled to be completed by the end of this year. Annual CGL capacity in Indonesia will be 400,000 tonnes.
He said that this project is also aimed at serving domestic demand, while taking a multipronged approach to capturing Southeast Asia's automotive sheet market.
