Gear art: New trade for old business in nation's rust belt

SHENYANG - It was an exhibition all about gears: motocycles, tanks, figurines and animals, all made out of shining gears of various sizes welded together.

The gears were once overstocked products in Shenyang Precision and Power Transmission Equipment Co Ltd, but are now made into artwork exhibited in workshops, selling for millions of yuan each year.

SPPTE, founded in 1953 in China's northeast rust belt province of Liaoning, was a subsidiary of State-owned Shenyang Machine Tool (Group) Co Ltd, mainly supplying gears to the conglomerate.