China's construction machinery market will be the biggest in
the world within five to 10 years, senior officials have said.
The industry will
grow by 10 percent annually in next Five-Year Plan period
(2001-05), said Zhou Jianping, deputy director of the Technology
and Equipment Department under the State Economic and Trade
Commission.
Zhou said the country's
construction machinery industry was still quiet at the moment
but had been boosted by booming building projects and the
western development programme.
Project -- which
links oilfields in Northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous
Region with Shanghai -- a power transmission project from
the country's west to east, and a national urbanization programme
that will dramatically increase the number of cities and townships
in China.
Western development,
which has entailed the building of railways, highways, airports
and other infrastructure facilities, will also bring abundant
business opportunities to the construction machinery sector.
"Building
equipment will be needed for all these projects and tens of
billions of yuan will have to be poured into the industry,"
said Zhou.
"Each year,
5 to 8 percent of building funds will go towards buying equipment."
China currently
has a total of 1,008 manufacturers in the construction machinery
sector which supply 60 percent of the domestic market demand,
the remainder being met by foreign machinery manufacturers.
China has imported
machinery products worth more than US$1 billion each year
for the past five years," said Qi Jun, president of the
China National Construction Machinery Corp.
"New projects
will be worth several billion US dollars."
He said foreign
companies are welcome to compete and bid for business opportunities.
"The government
is to work out policies that will provide a much more market-oriented
and transparent environment for fairer competition between
domestic and foreign manufacturers,"said Zhou.
Zhou said the injection
of foreign investment in China's construction machinery sector
would be much easier after China's accession to the World
Trade Organization, expected early next year.
(China Daily 12/11/2000)
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