ABB, the world's leading power and automation technology group, has set a target for its drives business in China for 2008. By then it wants to have doubled sales and tripled production, company officials said in Beijing.

Tauno Heinola, president of ABB Beijing Drive Systems Co, said the company's drives business in China has grown by an average annual rate of 40 percent during the last 10 years.

"The target is not high. If we maintain the current growth pace we can achieve the target within two-and-a-half years. There are still more than three years to go," Heinola told China Daily.

The drives business involves producing technology that helps such things as factory machinery save energy.

Heinola said that in order to achieve the target the firm has invested about US$10 million in a new plant in Beijing that applies special energy saving technology.

The new facility, which started operations this week, includes sales, marketing, after-sales support, engineering, research and development, sourcing, logistics and production facilities.

"This new facility means that any one of several hundred product variants can be shipped in a few hours," Heinola said.

He added that the new plant plans to serve both the domestic market and the Asia Pacific region.

"With 10 years of local production, sales, engineering and service experience behind us, and continuously growing market demand, we are confident of reaching our targets," he said.

Pekka Tiitinen, head of ABB's global drives business, said: "China is the biggest of our fast-growing markets. We want to have full competence in all areas of the drive business in China in order to serve customers in different industries."

The high efficiency and energy saving benefits of drives technology are important for China's industrial applications, especially when the country is experiencing a shortage of power, Tiitinen said.

Drives are widely used in areas such as metal production, petrochemicals, air-conditioning, printing and textile machinery.

Heinola said: "ABB drives have saved 10,000 GWh (gigawatt hours) of power for Chinese customers in the past 10 years. We believe that our energy efficient drive technology will help China in its effort to build a resource-efficient society."

ABB Beijing Drives Systems Co Ltd was established in 1994. The company is a major supplier of AC and DC drives in China.

(China Daily September 14, 2005)