Indian conglomerate Essar Group planned to build up a 4 million metric tonnes per year steel mill at Ras Al-Khair in Saudi Arabia, as they know Saudi Arabia aims to become an electric vehicle manufacturing center in the future.

Saudi Arabia has been trying to work on its industrial transformation and is aiming to manufacture more than 300,000 cars annually by 2030.

Essar said the US$4.5 billion integrated steel plant will be completed in about 3.5 years after they acquire the necessary approvals which could be obtained in about six months. They said most of the funding for the Saudi steel plant would be arranged from Saudi financial institutions and banks, and they intend to offer a minority stake to investors.

They also expect Saudi's official support will boost steel demand for the consumer goods industry.