Mr Ram Vilas Paswan union steel minister said that India is set to become the world's 2nd largest producer of steel before 2015-16 and the steel sector is likely to witness an investment of INR 870,640 crore by 2020.

Mr Paswan, while addressing at the Economic Editors' Conference, said that "During 2006, India emerged as the 5th largest crude steel producing country in the world and is set to become the 2nd largest global steel producer before 2015-16. Going by the estimate of INR 4,000 crore investments per million tonne of additional capacity, the steel sector is likely to witness an investment of INR 276,880 crore by 2012 and INR 870,640 crore by 2020."

He added that as per provisional figures, crude steel output witnessed a 9.8% growth to 50.88 million tonnes in 2006-07. Total capacity increased to 56.84 million tonnes last fiscal and the utilization was 89%.

Projecting India's steel production to be nearly 124 million tonne by 2012, Mr Paswan said that India is likely to achieve an annual capacity of around 275 million tonne by 2019-20.

Indian steel sector has emerged as a key investment destination for multinational giants like ArcelorMittal and POSCO, which have promised combined investment of more than INR 130,000 crore. India’s domestic steel companies have also announced massive capacity expansions. SAIL and RINL are executing plans to increase their capacity to more than 24 million tonne and 6 million tonne respectively by 2011-12.