The group held a groundbreaking ceremony for the steel mill in Vietnam Sunday. The project involves an initial investment of $8 billion and an annual capacity of 7.5 million tons.

The steel mill will be built in three stages. When the first stage, costing $8 billion, is finished later this year, the plant will produce 7.5 million tons of steel annually, the paper quoted Formosa Plastics Chairman Wang Wen-yuan as saying. In the second stage, the output will double and in the third stage, expected to be finished in 2011, the annual output will reach 30 million tons, making it Asia’s second-largest, and the world’s sixth-largest steel project after the newly-formed Hebei Iron and Steel Corp, whose annual output is 31.6 million tons.

Separately, the Vietnam government has invited the group to invest in an oil refinery petrochemical zone.

Formosa Plastics’ steel mill will need 40,000-50,000 workers, and it may hire workers from from China, Laos and Cambodia as Ha Tinh province has a small population, the Economic Daily News said. Formosa chairman said his company will assess the feasibility of investing in the zone if Vietnam liberalizes its oil and oil products market, the daily added.

The steel mill project participants include Formosa Plastics Corp (1301.TW), Nan Ya Plastics Corp (1303.TW), Formosa Petrochemical Corp (6505.TW), Formosa Chemicals & Fibre Corp (1326.TW) and Formosa Heavy Industries Corp. (Quamnet)