Japan’s second-largest steelmaker, JFE Holdings has allocated a massive $12 billion (1 trillion yen) towards a three year expansion plan that will focus on select Asian countries where demand is growing at a faster rate than domestic manufacturing capacity. Half of this amount will be spent in markets across Southeast Asia, India and China, which indicates a doubling of international investments.

“We will seek new growth on the stage of global markets as we concentrate our spending in emerging markets,” said Executive Vice President Shinichi Okada.

The company said its “existing business will be strengthened through M&A targeted at companies overseas.”  It will conduct a feasibility study for an integrated steelworks project in Vietnam, in which it is the majority stakeholder with Taiwan’s E United Group, and will consider jointly constructing a mill in India with its local affiliate JSW.

ON the back of these investments, JFE aims to increase sales by 26%, to 4 trillion yen by March 2015. It also targets to boost production to 40 million tonnes in five years from the current levels of 24.7 mt.

Plagued by a slowdown in local demand and a yen that touched a record high of 75.35 to the dollar on October 31 before declining by 9% till March end, the Japanese giant posted a loss of ¥36.63 billion ($448.3 million) for the year ending March 31, compared with a y-o-y profit of ¥58.61 billion. This was the giant’s first-ever annual net loss since it was formed through the merger of Kawasaki Steel Corp. and NKK Corp. in 2002.