A 10 MTPA Steel Plant Takes Shape in Odisha | JSW JFE Steel Ltd. | JSW x JFE

Please be seated. We will begin shortly. Everyone has arrived.

Sir has already arrived. So let's get ready to welcome him and other valuable dignitaries on the dais.

Once again requesting everyone who are standing to kindly be seated. I again remind everyone let's maintain discipline. Let's be seated.

Ladies and gentlemen, get ready to welcome our dignitaries on the dais.

I request all of you can be seated. Once honorable CM and other ministers will come and join us, we can welcome them jointly.

As you can see, we have meticulously planned this entire event and this is dedicated for the growth of entire Odisha, India, and of course opening new doorways of financial development, employments, etc.

What an honor to have all our distinguished delegates.

Since we have all our dignitaries, can we have a round of applause from all of you? Just waiting for the arrival of honorable CM.

This is an enriching morning. Morning filled with hope and aspiration. Honorable CM has already arrived along with honorable Minister of Education, Government of India.

I request everyone to kindly rise for national anthem.

Thank you so much. Please be seated. Good morning distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen. I, Munman Singh, your host for this very prestigious event, extend my warm welcome to all of you to this landmark occasion at the JSW Steel facility in Sambalpur. A day that represents not just the announcement of a new company but the strengthening of a partnership built on trust, technology, and shared ambition. Today we celebrate the coming together of two global leaders, JSW from India and JFE from Japan, united by a common vision to shape the future of steel manufacturing, innovation, and sustainable growth. This ceremony marks a defining milestone in a journey that began almost 20 years ago and now evolves into a new chapter of collaborations, progress, and industrial excellence.

We are deeply honored by the gracious presence of our esteemed dignitaries who have joined us to witness this historic moment. Can I request our valuable audience to give a thunderous round of applause. Let's welcome honorable Chief Minister of Odisha, Sri Mohan Charan Majhi. We welcome honorable Minister of Education, Government of India, Sri Dharmendra Pradhan. Honorable Minister Sri Suresh Pujari. Honorable Minister Sri Rabi Nayak. Chairman JSW Group, Mr. Sajjan Jindal. Honorable MLA Sri Janaran Mishra. Honorable MLA Sri Tankadhar Tripathi. Chief Secretary Government of Odisha, Srimati Anu Garg. Consul General Mr. Yoshihisa Ishikawa. From JFE, President and CEO Mr. Yoshihisa Kitano. Mr. Parth Jindal, MD JSW. Hiroyuki Ogawa from JFE. Mr. Jayant Acharya, Joint Managing Director JSW Steel, and our very important other delegates, dignitaries present on the dais.

Ladies and gentlemen, time has arrived to welcome and felicitate our dignitaries present on the dais. First and foremost, I would be humbly requesting Chairman JSW Group, Mr. Sajjan Jindal, to kindly welcome honorable CM of Odisha, Shri Mohan Charan Majhi. And of course we need warmth from you all, energy in a form of round of applause everyone.

Thank you. Now I request Mr. Yoshihisa Kitano to kindly welcome honorable Education Minister, Government of India, Sri Dharmendra Pradhan.

I request Mr. Parth Jindal to kindly welcome... we have the gracious presence of Mr. Kichiono, our valuable ambassador.

I request Mr. Ogawa Hiroyuki to kindly welcome Shri Suresh Pujari, Honorable Minister Government of Odisha.

I request Mr. Jayant Acharya to kindly welcome honorable minister Shri Rabi Nayak.

I request Mr. Parth Jindal to kindly welcome Mr. Yoshihisa Ishikawa.

We are indebted and we again welcome His Excellency Kichi Ono, Ambassador of Japan to India. Can I expect a round of applause from all of you everyone? Thank you.

To begin the formal proceedings, please join me in welcoming Mr. Koushik Kulkarni, Group Head Mergers and Acquisitions, Strategic Financing at JSW Steel. I request him to do the context setting. Over to you.

Good morning, Honorable Chief Minister of Odisha, Shri Mohan Charan Majhi. Honorable Minister of Education, Government of India, Shri Dharmendra Pradhan. Japanese Ambassador to India, His Excellency Ono-san. President and CEO JFE Holdings, Kitano-san. Our very own Chairman of the JSW Group, Shri Sajjan Jindal. CEO JSW Cement and Paints, Shri Arun Jindal. Dignitaries on the dais. Ladies and gentlemen, it is my pleasure and privilege today to welcome you all to the inauguration of this landmark joint venture between JSW and JFE.

What we are about to witness today has not been achieved overnight. In fact, it is the culmination of almost two decades of collaboration, trust, and shared ambition between the two companies. This joint venture, however, is far more than just a partnership between these two companies. It's a powerful demonstration of how two distinct yet rich cultures can come together, complement each other, and create something truly exceptional.

Very few moments are as fulfilling as these where you can see a once distressed company which we took over in 2021 being transformed into a thriving enterprise under the leadership of the JSW Group. And today this same company stands on the cusp of becoming a beacon of cooperation between two great nations, India and Japan.

Guided by the shared vision of our Chairman, Shri Sajjan Jindal, and the JFE President and CEO, Kitano-san, this joint venture is poised to emerge as one of the most technologically advanced steel facilities in the country, contributing meaningfully to the vision of Atmanirbhar Bharat. And what better place to realize this vision than the mineral-rich state of Odisha. We are confident that this joint venture will make a transformational contribution to the growth and prosperity of this state and its people. Thank you very much.

Thank you so much. It is my privilege to invite a visionary leader who has played a pivotal role in building one of India's most respected industrial enterprises. An accomplished business leader who had the foresight to lead the steel industry and JSW in particular on a transformational journey contributing significantly to India's growth philosophy. He is the force behind transforming JSW into a multi-billion dollar global conglomerate spanning steel, energy, infrastructure, cement, and new age sectors. He has not only scaled India's steel capacity globally but also served as Chairman of the World Steel Association. Ladies and gentlemen, I feel honored to announce that he was most recently announced by Economic Times as the Businessman of the Year 2025. Congratulations sir. Please join me in welcoming Mr. Sajjan Jindal, Chairman JSW Group, for his valuable address.

Thank you so much sir for this inspiring, enriching speech. Our partnership today stands as a strong proof to global collaboration and shared technological excellence. We have with us President and CEO JFE Holdings who has positioned India as a key growth market and has promoted this project as a core initiative within the group's global growth strategy. On this important milestone occasion, I would be humbly requesting President and CEO of JFE Holdings, please put your hands together. Let's welcome Mr. Yoshihisa Kitano for his address. And I would be requesting Mr. Fujisawa as the interpreter to kindly join us.

Namaste. Your Excellency Mohan Charan Majhi, the Honorable Chief Minister of Odisha. Your Excellency Shri Dharmendra Pradhan, the Honorable Minister of Education. Your Excellency Ambassador Ono, the Ambassador of Japan to India. Distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen, on behalf of JFE, I wish to express my profound gratitude for your gracious presence at today's inauguration marking the establishment of JSW JFE Steel. It is a privilege to celebrate this milestone in the presence of so many esteemed dignitaries.

I would also like to convey my sincere appreciation to all the members of JSW, JFE, and JSW JFE Steel whose dedicated efforts have made this day possible.

JSW JFE Steel seeks to contribute to India's economic development and strengthening of its social infrastructure by bringing together JFE's world-leading technologies and JSW's highly competitive production capabilities. We regard this initiative not merely as an investment in facilities or technology but as a long-term undertaking aimed at sustainable growth.

This year marks the 15th anniversary of the partnership between JSW and JFE. Since its inception in 2009, our collaboration has continued to deepen even as the global steel industry has undergone profound changes. Throughout these years, our two companies have advanced together, respecting each other's strength and working to enhance technology, quality, and stable supply. This partnership has been of great significance in the development and success of both sides.

Today as we launch JSW JFE Steel, I strongly feel that our relationship has entered an even more advanced stage. The trust and experience cultivated over the past 15 years will undoubtedly serve as a solid foundation of new opportunities to collaborate in the years ahead.

As we commemorate this latest milestone, JSW and JFE renew their commitment to continue working closely together as partners, shaping the future of the steel industry, striving to deliver greater value to society and grow together and become stronger together. In closing, I wish to express my sincere gratitude once again to all who have contributed to this project. I extend my best wishes for the continued success and the prosperity of JSW JFE Steel. Thank you very much for your attention.

Last message, I love Sambalpur. I love JSW and I love also Odisha and India. Thank you very much.

Thank you so much Kitano-san, Mr. Fujisawa. We are truly privileged to welcome head of the administration of Government of Odisha who is the first woman Chief Secretary, ladies and gentlemen, who stands as a powerful symbol of dedication and quiet strength. Let me draw your attention. You will be glad to know that she is not new to this region. She has already served as the Sub-Collector of Jharsuguda and also as the Collector of Sambalpur and Bargarh. Huge round of applause. Let's welcome Madam Anu Garg for her address.

Thank you. Honorable Chief Minister of Odisha, Honorable Union Minister, His Excellency the Ambassador of Japan, Honorable Minister Revenue, Honorable Minister Panchayati Raj, Honorable MLAs, Mr. Sajjan Jindal, Mr. Kitano from JFE, Mr. Parth Jindal and all from team JFE, team JSW, from Government of Japan. Ladies and gentlemen, as she mentioned when I started my journey 35 years back when I joined the Indian Administrative Service, my first posting was in Jharsuguda. At that time Jharsuguda was nothing like the Jharsuguda now and thereafter I was the Collector of Sambalpur and so both these places I hold with great affection in my heart and it's always a pleasure to be back today.

I would first of all like to congratulate JSW and JFE for entering into this partnership. For us, this is not just an agreement. For us, it is a strategic milestone in Odisha's industrial journey, a strong signal that the state is steadily moving up the value chain in metals and manufacturing. It is not just a single project for us. It brings together Odisha's resource strength, India's industrial push, and Japan's globally respected technological capability and reinforces Odisha's emergence as a destination for advanced value-added manufacturing.

We in Odisha like to believe that we have the edge. We call it EDGE. The E stands for Economy. You will be happy to know that Odisha has been consistently rated as number one in the country for its fiscal prudence and that too by the Indian policy think tank NITI and we are head and shoulders above the others and that is for fiscal management, for keeping within fiscal deficit and also for resource mobilization. Apart from that, the D in the EDGE is for Demography. We have almost 64% of our population in the 15 to 64 age group and as Mr. Jindal mentioned in his speech, large number of technical personnel, large number of technical institutes and there is one IIM based in Sambalpur itself.

G stands for Geography and as you know we are home to 25% of India's coal, 40% of iron ore, 98% chromite and apart from that 575 kilometers of shoreline lending itself to port-led growth and of course we are the gateway to Southeast Asia. The final E in EDGE is for the Ecosystem. The ecosystem that we have carefully curated including all our policies by which we are able to get more and more people like you and also in this ecosystem, I would like to include the recently articulated vision, the vision document which was led by our Chief Minister and which was made with the partnership of all the people of Odisha. In this vision, we have targeted that the $113 billion economy that Odisha is presently, we will move to $500 billion by 2036, which is when Odisha turns 100 and by 2047, $1.5 trillion economy.

To do that, while we are growing at 7.9% which is better than many other states, we still have to go a long, long way. We have put for ourselves a very ambitious target of creating 1 crore non-farm jobs by 2047 and hence all such interventions and the promise they bring for MSME growth in the state is very, very critical for all of us.

I would also like to mention here that we are very grateful to JFE for having come to our state. We already have a footprint which is growing from Japanese companies including TYK, Krosaki, Nippon Steel, Indo Nippon, Yokohama who are already with us in the state. We do not see Japan as an investor only but as a strategic partner in Odisha's phase of growth, next phase of growth because Japan brings a culture of quality, discipline, process excellence, long-term commitment and we value this as it aligns with the vision that we have set for our state. To JSW, I would like to say that they're already partnering with us in not just steel but renewable energy, electric mobility, batteries and we look forward to furthering this partnership. To JFE, we would like to assure all the support that is required. We are all here to say that we care and we are there for you at all times. Thank you.

Thank you so much ma'am. Ladies and gentlemen, dignitaries on the dais, India and Japan share a longstanding relationship founded on mutual respect, innovation, and economic cooperation. We have with us a seasoned diplomat and a key architect of the modern India-Japan strategic partnership and Ambassador of Japan to India. He has been actively strengthening cooperation across infrastructure, technology, industrial investment, and cultural exchanges. From facilitating high-level bilateral engagements to enabling Japanese industry participation in India's growth story, his leadership continues to deepen the bonds between two nations. To share his valuable perspective on this important collaboration, I would be humbly requesting His Excellency Kichi Ono, Ambassador of Japan to India, to address the gathering.

Shri Mohan Charan Majhi, Honorable Chief Minister of Odisha. Shri Dharmendra Pradhan, Honorable Minister of Education, Government of India. Mr. Yoshihisa Kitano, President and CEO of JFE Holdings. Mr. Sajjan Jindal, Chairman and Managing Director of JSW Group. Mr. Jayant Acharya, Joint Managing Director and CEO of JSW Steel Limited. Distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen. Namaskara. Good morning, Jaganath.

I would like to extend my sincere congratulations to JFE Steel and JSW Steel on the launch ceremony for their new joint venture integrated steel mill in India.

Japan and India share a common vision of a free and open Indo-Pacific and have built a close cooperative relationship over many years. With Honorable Prime Minister Modi's visit to Japan last year, the Special Strategic Global Partnership has entered a new golden chapter and is evolving into a truly strategic partnership.

Economic relations between Japan and India have also entered a new stage. For example, the Japan-India Joint Vision for the next decade, two ministers agreed on last year, sets a new target of 10 trillion yen, about 68 billion US dollars, in private sector investment from Japan to India. It doubles the previous achieved goal.

Furthermore, regarding human resource development, the two leaders agreed to aim for the exchange of more than 500,000 people over five years, including 50,000 skilled and potential talents from India to Japan. Going forward, the public and private sectors will continue to work together as one to ensure the achievement of these goals.

Distinguished guests, the state of Odisha is rich in mineral resources such as iron ore. Their exports to Japan have supported the economic development of both countries. During the post-World War reconstruction period in 1950s, while other nations banned iron ore exports, India lifted its ban and the iron ore shipped from Odisha contributed to Japan's economic development. The people of Japan still remember and are grateful for the principled and generous stance Indian government demonstrated.

There was a traditional Japanese tea house in the Japanese Ambassador's residence in Delhi that was built in 1950s with donations from several major Japanese steel manufacturers including the predecessors of JFE to commemorate the lifting of the ban on iron ore exports from India to Japan. Unfortunately, due to its age, high temperature, and the humidity, the tea house had to be demolished. Nevertheless, I still take every opportunity to tell this story to visitors to my residence as a symbol of our friendship that grew out of iron ore.

I also had an opportunity of telling this story to Honorable President Murmu when I presented the credentials to Madam President two years ago.

Today the form of Japan-India cooperation has evolved further and Japanese steel manufacturers led by JFE are actively increasing their investments in India. Japan is committed to cooperate with India to achieve its target to make a crude steel production capacity of 500 million tons by 2047 through innovations in steel making technology.

Ladies and gentlemen, as previous speakers mentioned, I understand that the collaboration between JFE Steel and JSW Steel has steadily deepened over more than 15 years. As an initial step, technical support in the blast furnace and steel making operations began in 2010. Starting with the provision of technology in high value-added sectors such as automotive steel sheets and electrical steel sheets, the collaboration has significantly evolved into this joint venture here in Sambalpur.

I'm convinced that these 15 years symbolize industrial cooperation between Japan and India, contribute to making India, and will play a major role in the future advancement and sustainable growth of India's steel industry.

Next year, the year 2027, marks the 75th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between Japan and India. To further strengthen bilateral relations between the two countries, we've begun planning how to celebrate it in both countries. I strive to organize many milestone events to commemorate this special year 2027 together with the Indian central government, state governments, and business communities not only in Delhi but also in many parts of India including Odisha.

Today JSW and JFE have the common slogan, common name of 'Forging Ahead' and 'Getting Stronger Together'. This is very impressive, excellent common target. But this is not just between JSW and JFE. It should be between Japan and India and also Japan and Odisha.

So to Mr. Jindal, 'ichi' is not just for your two companies. That must be for our two countries. So let's forge ahead and get stronger together. Thank you very much, dhanyavad.

Thank you Your Excellency for your continued support and encouragement of Indo-Japanese partnerships. Ladies and gentlemen, we now arrive at the most anticipated moment of today's ceremony, the official unveiling of the new company name, the plaque, and a lot of things. So I would be humbly requesting first and foremost our honorable Chief Minister sir to kindly do the honors by unveiling the plaque digitally by...

Pressing the remote of the button followed by a video. I request everyone to kindly join us. We have a video on the scene. Can I expect a huge round of applause from all of you? So with that, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to present the new logo. Can we play?

The background to the establishment of the strategic comprehensive alliance with JSW Steel in 2009 was a clear objective to enhance competitiveness in the rapidly growing Indian market by leveraging the respective strengths of both companies.

In this way, the collaboration between JFE and JSW has been shaped through a combination of strategic decision-making, persistent on-site technical support, and organizational reform.