Business model provides advantage

For Wang Congxiao, working on new energy and green building projects in the UK reflects the Chinese infrastructure sector's shift from cost efficiency toward innovation and high quality.

"In the UK, we do large projects with only a few key management staff, as most of the work is subcontracted to local companies. Our role became that of manager, technology provider and project supervisor, so this business model demands that we offer higher cutting-edge expertise," says Wang, vice-president and director of the new energy engineering department of China Triumph International Engineering Co.

CTIEC has already built six solar farms in the UK, leveraging its solar power expertise, which benefited from China's investment in solar in recent years. It also acquired German solar technology firms CTF and Avancis, giving it world-leading solar technology.

CTIEC is starting construction on a new complex in Berkeley this year, on the old site of the Berkeley Nuclear Power Station, now closed and being decommissioned and converted into a green complex called Berkeley Green.

Wang says the company's key advantage is the ability to deliver what he called a 360-degree total solution, from design through construction, engineering and material supply.

"In the international market the practice of giving a big contract to a company with EPC (engineering procurement construction) ability is already quite a common practice, as it significantly lowers the risk of a project for the project owner compared with having to put together a team of different companies that are only able to supply a niche market service."

CTIEC's international activities took off rapidly in the 2000s. Wang says the timing resulted from China's development of indigenous construction material technology, enabling it to then take that advantage abroad.

(China Daily Africa Weekly 05/06/2016 page28)