ZhongTian Technologies Fibre Optics Co Ltd has developed its own new generation of fiber optics, giving China the opportunity to compete with overseas rivals and reduce its dependency on imports, a so…
ZhongTian Technologies Fibre Optics Co Ltd has developed its own new generation of fiber optics, giving China the opportunity to compete with overseas rivals and reduce its dependency on imports, a source at the company revealed. “Our purpose of developing the product is to replace the large amount of imports,” Zhu Zhaozhang, general manager of ZhongTian Technologies, told the newspaper. The company spent CNY 166 million and 12 months on developing the new product. ZhongTian“s factory in east China“s Jiangsu province is expected to produce 1 million km of non-dispersion single mode fiber optics in 2003, Zhu said, a figure set to increase over time to 5 million km. The fiber optics sector is currently immersed in a price war allegedly caused by dumping by South Korean and Japanese companies. This has led to a drop in the per-km market price of fiber optics to the current CNY 120 from CNY 1,500 in 2001. Zhu said about 40% of fiber optics used in China were imported, mainly from the US, Japan and South Korea. In 2002, China produced 25 million km of fiber optics, and the country is expected to need 2.5 million km of optical cables by 2005.