The Panzhihua Iron and Steel (Group) Company (PISG), China's largest producer of rail and vanadium and titanium steel, will spend a total of 7 billion yuan (843 million US dollars) on technological upgrading and improving of its product mix in the next five years.

PISG President Hong Jibi said Saturday that the program will help his company increase its profits by about 55 times that of 1999, from 20 million yuan to 1.1 billion yuan.

Last year the company had a sales revenue of 10 billion yuan, and when the program is accomplished, the figure will become 14 billion yuan, Hong said.

The company is situated in Panzhihua City of Sichuan Province, southwest China, where proven vanadium and titanium reserves top 13 million tons, accounting for one-fifth of the world's total. Its vanadium products have secured 20 percent of the international market.

Hong said that the implementation of the government's strategy to develop the western region of China has provided valuable chances for the development of PISG.

Hong did not disclose the source of the fund but said the money will mainly be used to upgrade the company's vanadium and titanium production lines and related technology and to improve pollution-control facilities, with an aim to turn the company into the second largest vanadium producer in the world.

To achieve the goal, Hong said, the company plans to recruit an increasing number of talent professionals from both home and abroad, adding that a post-doctoral research center will be established for the purpose.