With India forecast to become the world’s third largest automobile manufacturing nation by 2026, it is no surprise to learn that the country’s steel minister,  Chaudhary Birender Singh, has been engaged in high-level meetings in London with ArcelorMittal and SAIL top brass. 

The big guns met in the UK capital to discuss a planned joint venture between the world’s largest steelmaker and SAIL (Steel Authority of India Ltd).

The two steel giants are planning a US$1 billion automotive steel joint venture, which is currently on schedule to be up and running ‘within the forecast timeframe’.

A Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) was signed by SAIL and ArcelorMittal back in May 2015. The proposed plant will offer ‘technologically advanced steel products for India’s rapidly growing automotive sector’.

Over the next decade it is estimated that automobile production in India will grow from it’s current 3 million vehicles per year to over 7 million.

Growing automotive demand in India has been bolstered by the Indian Government’s ‘Make it in India’ campaign, which is designed, according to a report by India’s The Economic Times, ‘to transform India into a global manufacturing hub’.

- The 18th China（Guangzhou）Int’l Sheet metal machinery,Forging, Stamping and Setting Equipment Exhibition