A chemical fiber project costing 6.4 billion yuan (US$773 million) has gone into operation in Luoyang City, in north China's Henan Province. The project, with annual capacity of 200,000 tons of polyester, 90,000 tons of terylene long fiber, and 100,000 tons of terylene short fiber, has made the city the fifth-largest production base of chemical fiber in China.

Since the project went into trial operation in 2000, it has manufactured 1.86 million tons of products of various kinds, and generated 3.4 billion yuan (US$411 million) in sales, according to sources.

The city already has a large oil refinery with an annual capacity of five million tons. The addition of the new chemical fiber project makes the Luoyang General Petrochemicals Plant the largest of its kind in the province, with annual sales worth more than 10 billion yuan (US$1.2 billion).

( April 2, 2002)