International investors ready to enter joint venture but government will retain control to ensure downstream steel industry reaps benefits, Parliament told INTERNATIONAL investors are ready to enter a joint venture to establish a new steel mill, and the selection of a partner and the negotiation of a participation agreement is expected to be finalised by the second quarter of this year, Department of Trade and Industry acting director-general Garth Strachan said on Friday.He stressed, however, that any agreement would contain "strong conditionalities" to ensure government control of the project to avoid the shortcomings that arose from the unbundling of Iscor, which resulted in the downstream steel industry not benefiting from development pricing as envisaged.The new mill would use low-cost iron-ore tailings and not the lump iron ore used by ArcelorMittal SA, and would use technologies that would eliminate the need for importing expensive coking coal, which is the second-largest cos...
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