Qatar Steel, the state-controlled company, will start work on its $1.2 billion steel and iron plant, being developed in partnership with Algeria's national steel and iron company Industrial Park Cedar, this month.

The project, which would come up in the industrial Bellara zone in the eastern Algerian Mediterranean port of Jijel, is expected to start production in 2017, reported Sharq, an Arabic daily.

The plant would initially produce two million tonnes of steel and iron per year and the output could eventually reach five million tonnes annually, it stated.

As per the deal signed by the duo at Doha in 2013, Cedar will control 51 per cent of the project while the rest will be held by Qatar Steel, the report added.