China Increasing Engineering Projects, Labor Services Abroad

BEIJING, August 1 (Xinhua) -- China's overseas engineering contracting and labor services businesses have kept growing remarkably, in contrary to the fact that the country's exporters are still struggling to recover from the negative effects of the Asian financial meltdown, today's Business Weekly of China Daily reported.

China contracted 5.83 billion US dollars worth of engineering projects and labor services during the first half of this year, a 2.96 percent rise on 1998 figure.

Foreign Trade and Economic Co-operation Minister Shi Guangsheng called foreign engineering contracting and labor co-operation businesses "the most promising part of China's foreign economic co- operation sector."

"Global construction investment volume was 3.2 trillion US dollars in 1998, while Chinese firms only clinched 10.1 billion U. S. dollars. This indicates we have huge room for further development," Shi said.

China's engineering contracting companies have gathered rich experience in adapting to market changes, because they have directly faced international markets since they came into being during the late 1970s and the early 1980s.
Ten years ago, they successfully shifted their focus to the emerging Asian markets from the once exuberant Middle-Eastern markets, which was withering quickly.

Since the outbreak of the Asian financial turmoil in 1997, they have also made big headway in tapping European and American markets.

China Metallurgical Construction Engineering Co. contracted a engineering project worth of 150 million US dollars in the U.S. this year. This was the first time that a Chinese engineering company ever succeeded in the US engineering market.

Chinese Government will guide and support a group of big contractors to bid for large projects in the international markets, said Shi.