South Korean Ambassador to India, Kim Joong Keun, today hoped construction work for the12 billion US Dollar steel project near Paradip in Odisha will start this year. He also said the South Korean steel major Posco is ready to forego the disputed land where local people have been opposing the project. Keun, who held discussion with Odisha Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik on the project at Bhubaneswar, told media persons that the 12 mtpa steel plant, the biggest foreign direct investement in India, has been inordinatedly delayed due to a number of problems including protest by local farmers. He said Posco is ready to set up a less capacity steel plant, if the requried 4000 acres of land was not made available to it for the project. He said Posco has already acquired 2000 acres of land and it needs at least 700 more acres of land to start the project.