China has enormous potential in the building materials sector as the country is the largest developing country, in an increasingly rapid process of industrialization and urbanization, which is resulted in the world's construction market.

This was remarked by Liu Changfa, chairman of the China Society of Building Materials Industry Economy (CSBMIE) and president of the China Strategy Institute of Building Materials (CSIBM), at Wednesday's get-together attending hosted by the CSBMIE for a group of visiting overseas Chinese business leaders.

According to Liu, a leading expert in the industry, China now enjoys an urbanization rate of around 45 percent, and it is expected to stand at about 60 percent. It indicates that China is still in the stage of large-scaled construction.

In 2008, the country's total social investment in fixed assets reached 17.23 trillion yuan (2.51 trillion U.S. dollars), an increase of 20.5 percent year on year. The increase for this year is expected to top 20 percent.

According to official statistics, last year, China's building materials industry had an added value of 524 billion yuan, up by 20.7 percent over the figure of the previous year.

In addition to building new houses, China will invest huge amounts in rebuilding or renovating existing buildings, to a total floor space of over 43 billion square meters, and in carrying out its New Village Campaign, which means to build or rebuild a large number of rural houses, according to the expert.

He encouraged overseas Chinese business people to take part in the country's modernization drive.

"I have been engaged in different jobs that are different from my own subject," said Jessica Wei Yang, president of the American Northeastern Chinese Association. She now plans to cooperate with Chinese companies in the building materials to explore both Chinese and international markets.

"With a powerful China behind us, we overseas Chinese are becoming more and more confident wherever we go and whoever we are dealing with," said Xiaohang Yang, president of the E-share Trading Co., Ltd., from Fukuoka City, Japan.

(Xinhua News Agency April 2, 2009)