JFE in return will secure Dongkuk as a long-term client for its slabs. Dongkuk said it will invest 760 billion won (US$803 million) in the facility, which will have annual steel plate production capacity of 1.5 million tons upon completion in 2009. The plant will raise the firm's total annual steel plate capacity to 4.1 million tons. The alliance is part of a joint effort to counter a global reshuffle in the steelmaking industry, which shifted into high gear earlier this year when Mittal Steel of the Netherlands, the world's largest steelmaker, purchased Arcelor Luxembourg. Steelmakers here worry the Asian market could be the next stage of the global reorganization. Japan's Nippon Steel and South Korea's POSCO, the world's second- and third-largest steelmakers by output, forged a partnership based on a cross-shareholding arrangement in 2000.