By Zheng Lifei (China Daily)
Updated: 2007-07-11 14:22

TINO Stone Group SA, one of world's top natural stone processors, expects to generate nearly a quarter of its sales from China by 2010, driven by the country's brisk economy and a construction boom, said a top company executive.

"We are aiming for $60 million sales in China and $250 million globally by 2010," said Antonio Valdes Cosentino, its president and chairman. "The Chinese economy is developing fast and the country's manufacturing prowess is impressive," said Cosentino, who also founded the company.

"Designers and architects all over the world are rushing to China, now the world's fourth-largest economy," he said.

The Spanish company, which produces marble and textured stone products, last week inaugurated a multimillion-dollar manufacturing complex in Zhangjiagang, a coastal city in East China's Jiangsu Province, its first production base outside its home turf.

The $60 million facility will also serve as TINO's Asia-Pacific headquarters, according to Eulogio de Barandiaran, head of its Asia-Pacific operations.

The first phase of the facility, which costs $28.5 million, will have an annual capacity of 1 million square meters of natural marble.

Some 70 percent of TINO's customers in China are from the hotel industry, with the rest from other stone processing companies, Cosentino said.

The products manufactured in the Zhangjiagang facility will serve Japan, South Korea, Singapore and other countries in Asia-Pacific in addition to meeting the soaring demand in China, he said.

"China is a pivotal point in our Asia-Pacific strategy. Any company with global ambitions will need to have a presence in China," said Cosentino.

The natural stone processor, he said, will first target areas close to Jiangsu Province as its priority market in China.

"We are then planning to move to Beijing in the north and Guangzhou in the south." TINO, he said, has no plans to set up production facilities in other areas of China but "will establish warehousing and distribution centers in some major cities".

TINO is among the growing number of Spanish firms entering the Chinese market in recent years as Sino-Spanish economic relations boom. There are about 450 Spanish companies with a presence in China. Bilateral trade surged to $5.8 billion in the first four months of this year, up 54 percent year-on-year.