The Capital Iron and Steel Company, one of China's major steel producers, aims to become a hi-tech-oriented complex in the next ten years.

By 2010, the company's output value from high and new technologies will account for half of its total industrial output value, said the company's general manager Luo Bingsheng recently.

To achieve this goal, the company will focus efforts on the development, design, and production of software and computer chips this year and in next few years, Luo added.

The company's three major production components -- software, integrated circuits and micro-electronics -- have already signed cooperative agreements with prestigious Qinghua University and the Software Research Institute attached to the Chinese Academy of Sciences.

A high-tech company with Luo as president was registered late last month in Zhongguancun, known as China's "Silicon Valley."

Since they began producing large integrated circuits in cooperation with NEC of Japan in 1995, the Capital Iron and Steel Company has secured the country's second-largest market share for these products, after Motorola.

The sales income and overseas business volume of the Capital Iron and Steel Company from its non-steel sector has reached 15.31 billion yuan (1.84 billion US dollars), making up 48.3 percent of the company's total.

The company's pre-tax profits reached 980 million yuan (118 million dollars) in 1999, or 40 million yuan (4.8 million dollars) more than 1998, despite a 10 percent cut in production.