Tata Steel Board today approved a framework for a joint venture between Tata Steel Limited (TSL) and Nippon Steel Corporation (NSC) for the production and sales of automotive cold-rolled flat products at Jamshedpur, Jharkhand, India to address the localisation needs of Indian automotive customers for high-grade cold-rolled steel sheet and contribute to further expansion of the Indian automobile industry. TSL will hold 51% and NSC will hold 49% of equity capital of the Joint Venture Company.

The above joint venture aims to capture the growing demand for high-grade automotive cold-rolled flat products in India by setting up a Continuous Annealing and Processing Line (CAPL) with a capacity of 600,000 tonnes. NSC will transfer its technology for producing high-grade cold-rolled steel sheet for automotive application, including skin panels and high tensile steels.

NSC and TSL have a long history of cooperation in the field of automotive flat products and other areas of mutual interest. Through this project, NSC and TSL have decided to strengthen the partnership by entering into a joint operation. The companies will target conclusion of the joint venture agreement by June 2010 and startup of operations before March 2013.

In addition to this, both companies will continuously discuss further collaboration in other fields such as automotive CGL or up-stream processes etc.

About Tata Steel

Established in 1907 as Asia's first integrated private sector steel company, Tata Steel Group is among the top ten global steel companies with an annual crude steel capacity of over 28 million tonnes per annum (mtpa). It is now the world's second-most geographically-diversified steel producer, with operations in 26 countries and a commercial presence in over 50 countries. The Tata Steel Group, with a turnover of US$ 29 billion in FY '09, has over 80,000 employees across five continents and is a Fortune 500 company. The Group’s vision is to be the world’s steel industry benchmark in “Value Creation” and “Corporate Citizenship” through the excellence of its people, its innovative approach and overall conduct. Underpinning this vision is a performance culture committed to aspiration targets, safety and social responsibility, continuous improvement, openness and transparency. In 2008, Tata Steel India became the first integrated steel plant in the world, outside Japan, to be awarded the Deming Application Prize 2008 for excellence in Total Quality Management.

About Nippon Steel

Head Office: 6-1, Marunouchi 2-chome, Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo
Representative : Representative Director and President Shoji Muneoka
Establishment: March, 1970
Capital: 419.5 billion yen
Sales: 4,769.8 billion yen (FY2008)
Number of employees: 15,503 (as of March 31, 2009)
Webpage: www.nsc.co.jp/en/index.html

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