Hitachi, Ltd. plans to provide a Chinese city with a sewage purification system, the first step in entering the water-related business in China on a major scale, according to company sources.
Besides installing the system in Chengdu, Sichuan Province, the company hopes to win construction and maintenance orders for water supply and sewerage systems throughout the country.
Hitachi will be the first Japanese manufacturer to enter China’s water-related business on a full-fledged basis.
In the sewage purification system planned for Chengdu, Hitachi will use microorganisms to remove the nitrogen from waste water, a method requiring a smaller capital investment than conventional systems.
Hitachi will undertake the business in cooperation with the state-run Chengdu Xingrong Group Co., they said.
China’s rapid urbanization makes it difficult for existing water supply and sewerage systems to keep up with actual water and treatment needs.
The Economy, Trade and Industry Ministry projects that China will become the world’s largest water-related business market by 2025, accounting for about 15 percent of the global market, or about 12.4 trillion yen.
Given this, Hitachi concluded it had to jump into the water-related business now to boost its operations in China.
Currently, water-related businesses undertaken by Japanese companies in China are confined to such fields as parts supply and investment by general trading houses, and lag far behind the so-called water majors in Europe, such as the French companies Suez S.A. and Veolia Water.
The Japanese government plans to boost its assistance for the export of infrastructure, including water-related businesses, as a key pillar of its growth strategy.
With this assistance in mind, Hitachi plans to step up efforts to win more orders for water-related projects not only in China but also in Southeast Asia and the Middle East.
Through such efforts, Hitachi aims to nearly double its sales in water-related businesses to about 200 billion yen in fiscal 2015 from 115 billion yen in fiscal 2009, the sources said.
