ESAB, one of the world's largest welding and cutting equipment manufacturers, said it is investing US$30 million to build its first welding wire plant in China.

The plant, which will open next month, is located in Zhangjiagang, Jiangsu Province and will be able to produce 40,000 tons of solid wires for welding process every year with 110 employees.

It is the first time the Swedish company has expanded its production to China as it aims to increase its market share in China from the current 1 percent to 10 percent in the next five to 10 years.

Although domestic steel producers such as Baosteel announced they will accept an 19 percent price increase in iron ore prices, which will increase ESAB's production costs, the company is optimistic about its future development in China.

"It will not change the competitive capacity between us and rivals as every company will face the problem and the strong market demand of welding materials will strongly boost our business," said Robert Wiseman, managing director of ESAB Welding and Cutting Products (Shanghai) Co Ltd.

China now consumes 20 percent of the total global welding materials, the largest consuming market, and the figure is expected to grow 5 percent every year, more than double the 2 percent growth of North American and European markets.

The booming development in power industry, construction machinery industry, shipbuilding industry as well as building pipelines of natural gas, petrol, will offer great business opportunities, Wiseman said.

The investment by the company - which is owned by Britain's Charter Corp - in China has amounted to US$35 million including another cutting equipment plant in Shanghai.

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