Group chairman Kumar Mangalam Birla outlined the plans during the company's 52nd annual general meeting in Mumbai, India.

He said the company was at an advanced stage of the $5bn greenfield projects plan.

However, there has been a delay due to environmental and bureaucracy issues.

Greenfield expansion refers to plants which will be built from scratch and are completely untapped. Once all the projects are commissioned, the company will have an aluminium capacity of 1.7Mt/y.

Mr Birla added there is a plan to invest around $300M to expand the aluminium rolling operations in Prinda in South Amercia which will increase the existing plant’s capacity to 600kt/. The project is expected to come on stream by late 2012.

The company will also invest $400M to expand its rolling and recycling operations in South Korea in response to growing demand in Asia and Middle East.