As China's first and largest manufactured house exporter, Intech Building Co, which is owned by BNBM, has experienced its fair share of chill from the global economic winter.

Low budget rural housing as envisaged by BNBM. [China Daily]

Liu Guiping, deputy general manager of BNBM and general manager of Intech Building, said the current economic recession had largely swallowed up its first quarter sales volume from overseas markets.

In the first quarter of this year, the company suffered from zero new contracted sales income from its overseas markets. This compared to US$15 million in the same period last year, according to Liu.

Liu predicted that the company will secure some US$20 million of new contracts this year, a one-third decline on the 2008 figures.

Since entering the overseas markets in 2007, Intech Building has traded with some 22 different countries. This has included deals in Africa, East Europe and the former Soviet Union countries.

Liu said: "We are currently aiming at maintaining just 50 per cent of our previous sales volumes this year."

Despite the difficulties in the financial markets the company is still on target to set up overseas assembly centers in a number of its overseas markets, including Tanzania, Nigeria, Algeria, Angora and Belarus.

The company is committed to costs of US$500,000 per start-up, but sees this as a vital part of its future global expansion plans.

(China Daily April 14, 2009)