Leading European environment service provider-- the French-based Veolia Environment announced in Beijing Wednesday that the group will increase its total investment in China from the current 1.5 billion U.S. dollars to 2.5 billion dollars by the year 2013.
Henri Proglio, Chairman of the Board of Directors of Veolia Environment, who is paying a visit to China, said Veolia Environment, now the largest investor and operator of water and waste business in China, will keep investing heavily in China in the future.
Proglio said China raised a new concept of conservation culture in the latest national congress of the Communist Party of China, which is good news for foreign companies in China like Veolia, and Veolia is expecting more business opportunities in the country.
Since starting business in China in the 1980s, Veolia Environment has operated more than 60 projects in the fields of water resources management, waste management and services related to energy in China's mainland, Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan.
Proglio said Veolia Environment was negotiating for a project in Chongqing, one of China's four municipalities, under which the company would likely take over part of the city's public transport network, covering about 1,000 public vehicles and 3,500 staff.
According to Proglio, Veolia Environment has signed a number of new deals in China this year. A 30-year water management contract with Tianjin Municipality has just been signed earlier this month to supply three million local inhabitants with drinking water. The contract will also develop a water distribution network to all the industrial areas in the city's Binhai area, situated along the coast of Bohai Bay.
In July, Veolia's energy branch won its first urban heating contract in China. The flagship project is in the city of Jiamusi in northeast China's Heilongjiang province, which currently serves 250,000 residents.
At the same time, the company won another urban heating contract in the province's capital city Harbin to build heating networks and supply heat for more than 17 million square meters of building space in the southwest area of the city.
"Energy exploration and management in China will have a bright future," said Proglio, noting that energy will be the key area for Veolia to explore the Chinese market.
Talking about new projects in waste management, Jorge Moro, CEO of Veolia Environment Asia, said just two days ago Veolia won a new contract in Shanghai to purchase a local waste incineration plant with a daily waste-treatment capacity of 1,500 tonnes.
In addition, the waste branch of Veolia Environment Services is penetrating China's central and western regions, and has just signed a 30-year waste disposal contract with the government of Jiujiang, Jiangxi province to help the municipal government design, build and operate a sanitary waste landfill site with a capacity of 16 million tons.
Proglio said Veolia Environment would further expand business in China in all the four fields mentioned above by increasing investment. Meanwhile, it would also strengthen cooperation with Chinese colleges and institutes to train staff specialized in environment protection to meet China's demand for environmental protection experts.