¨Hermano… Yo tambien soy Indio¨ (…Brother …I am also an Indian”). This is how Bolivian President Evo Morales greeted Naveen Jindal, when they first met in 2006. The two “Indians” signed an agreement in July 2007 for an integrated mining and steel project in eastern Bolivia. The iron ore was to be mined from “El Mutun” which has one of the biggest iron ore reserves (40 billion tonnes) in the world. Jindal was allowed to exploit 50% of the reserves and export annually over 10 million tons for a lease period of 40 years. The company agreed to set up a pellet plant of 10 million tons per annum, a 6 million tons sponge iron unit, a 1.7 million tons steel plant and a 450-MW power plant. The total investment was 2.1 billion dollars, spread over a period of eight years.
This was the largest foreign investment contract signed in the history of Bolivia. The government was to earn 200 million annually from it, and generate 12,000 jobs. It was also the biggest ever contract secured by an Indian company in Latin America. The project held the promise of other spin-off opportunities in gas, railways, infrastructure, and export opportunities for Indian companies. Naturally it assumed a high profile in India’s rapidly developing economic relations with Latin America.