Kalmar Industries, a branch of Kone Corporation, the largest industrial conglomerate in northern Europe, is expected to build a new container equipment assembly plant in an industrial park near Yangshan Port of Shanghai.

In accordance with an agreement signed in Shanghai Wednesday, the projected venture will be situated inside Lingang Xincheng Industrial Park and will cost 10 million US dollars.

The assembly plant will cover an area of 50,000 sq m and will have workshops with combined floor space totaling 7,000 sq m. It will begin production late next year and will mainly assemble wharf trailers for the container conveyance equipment market in Asia.

Yangshan Port, 45 km from Pudong International Airport in Shanghai, is a deep-water container port that is now under extensive construction around the Yangshan isles, the east of Hangzhou Bay. The construction is expected to be finished by the end of 2005. The port will be connected to Shanghai's outer ring road by a marine bridge and a freeway. The port will be capable of handling 20 million TEUs (twenty-foot equivalent unit) of containers annually within 10 years.

Kalmar has become a main supplier of container handling machinery at Chinese ports and pileup grounds since it entered the Chinese market in 1990s. Before Wednesday's projected venture, it had built another factory in Waigaoqiao of Shanghai.

Wednesday's signing ceremony was attended by Paula Lehtomki, foreign trade minister of Finland, Benjamin Bassin, Finnish ambassador to China, and Yang Xiong, Shanghai vice-mayor.

Source: Xinhua