THYSSENKRUPP AG plans to invest 500 million euros (US$710 million) in China in the next five years to expand its elevator, auto parts, industrial services and steel business in the market, its chief executive officer said yesterday in Shanghai.
The investment will help the Germany-based industrial conglomerate to double its sales to two billion euros in the same period in the country, its largest market in Asia, according to Ekkehard Schulz, its CEO.
"It's an ambitious plan," said Schulz on the opening of ThyssenKrupp Technology Day, an exhibition of its latest technologies running through October 6.
The company has just signed a memorandum of understanding to invest 150 million euros in a factory for crankshafts and connecting rods in Nanjing, southeastern Jiangsu Province, to meet the needs of truck makers. It should open in 2009.
Other major developments include doubling annual production capacity of its galvanized steel sheet plant in northeast China, a joint-venture with Angang New Steel, to 800,000 tons by the end of next year.
Being its seventh-largest market, China still accounted for only two percent of its global sales of 47.1 billion euros last year.
Schulz also said yesterday that China should follow WTO rules and take effective measures to curb steel exports to the European market, if it wishes to avoid long-running trade conflicts.
"All the measures taken by the Chinese government to curb exports have been without effect so far," he said.
The drastic surge in Chinese steel exports to the EU, estimated to increase by 100 percent this year, has caught the attention of the EU Commission, which is checking export volumes quarter by quarter.