LS Cable Ltd, South Korea's largest cable maker, aims to increase sales in China from US$150 million this year to US$1 billion, following the successes of its sister company LG Electronics.

"We came to China later than LG and Samsung, and are smaller than them, but the Chinese market has the same significance for us," said Lee Kwang-won, president of LS Cable China.

The biggest South Korean cable maker, with a share of about 40 per cent of its home market, has been looking to extend its leadership in other markets, with China as a base.

It opened its first Chinese factory in Pingdu in Shandong Province in 1997, when it was still called LG Cable, prior to a late 2003 spin-off from the South Korean conglomerate.

After the spin-off, LS Cable added four new factories in China, and now has a total of six, complementing six plants in South Korea and three in other countries.

Lee said LS Cable's sales in China would reach US$150 million in 2006, after doubling every year for the past two years.

The targets are US$650 million in 2008 and US$1 billion in 2010.

Aggressive investment is a major tool in achieving the goals.

Last week, the South Korean firm poured US$10 million into a new air conditioning factory in Qingdao in East China's Shandong Province.

The factory, with the neighbouring Pingdu factory, will become one of the two bases for the company's drive into China's burgeoning air conditioning market.

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