Economy

Markets

Industries

Insights

Reports

Events

Housing exporter feels foreign chill

By Jia Lu (China Daily)
Updated: 2009-04-14 07:43

As China's first and largest manufactured house exporter, Intech Building Co, which is owned by BNBM, has experienced its fair share of chill from the global economic winter.

Liu Guiping, deputy general manager of BNBM and general manager of Intech Building, said the current economic recession had largely swallowed up its first quarter sales volume from overseas markets.

In the first quarter of this year, the company suffered from zero new contracted sales income from its overseas markets. This compared to $15 million in the same period last year, according to Liu.

Related readings:  Stronger domestic demand slows makeshift home exports  Export markets devastated, firms look to domestic salvation  China's prefabricated home exports slow down  More businesses shift from exports to home market

Liu predicted that the company will secure some $20 million of new contracts this year, a one-third decline on the 2008 figures.

Since entering the overseas markets in 2007, Intech Building has traded with some 22 different countries. This has included deals in Africa, East Europe and the former Soviet Union countries.

Liu said: "We are currently aiming at maintaining just 50 percent of our previous sales volumes this year."

Despite the difficulties in the financial markets the company is still on target to set up overseas assembly centers in a number of its overseas markets, including Tanzania, Nigeria, Algeria, Angora and Belarus.

The company is committed to costs of $500,000 per start-up, but sees this as a vital part of its future global expansion plans.