J-Exim has approved the loan and is likely to sign the loan agreement before the end of this year, highly placed bank officials told PTI. The 10-year period loan would be financed under the "export-credit scheme" of the bank, which means the loan has been approved without any domestic bank guarantee, the officials said.

The loan to Tisco would be given in the Japanese currency yen (eight billion yen), sources said. Japanese multinationals Hitachi and Nissho Iwai would be the equipment suppliers for the project, they said adding the rate of interest for the loan would be based on OECD guidelines.

The last mission of the bank had visited the project site during February this year to discuss the financial details of the company and found that the loan would be feasible for the project, company sources said.

J-exim is confidentthat recession in steel would be overcome and three to four japanese commercial banks would finance the loan under j-exim, sources added.

The loan would also help in promoting japanese equipment suppliers, as tisco would have to buy atleast 30 per cent of the equipment for the project from these firms under the credit scheme, the sources said.

They said, the j-exim head office at tokyo was evaluating the risk factors involved and would also provide the loan according to the shipments made from japanese trading company, nissho iwai.

Tisco is a good company and the bank hopes that they would be able to meet the international competition soon once the recession in the steel sector is over, the sources said.

The total capacity of of the crm project is expected to be 1.2 million tonnes, company sources said adding the project is scheduled to begin commercial production in september 2000.

Tisco had planned two crm projects -- one in jamshedpur and the other at gopalpur where it had proposed to set up a 10million tonnes integrated steel unit, sources said.

Meanwhile, the steel industry had demanded for a level playing field in cold roll coil, in view of cheap imports from cis countries to face recession in the domestic industry.