China Railway Engineering Corporation (CREC) 中国中铁 is the second largest construction contractor in the world and occupies the 102th place on the Fortune Global 500 list. The Beijing-based SOE, together with its main rival, China Railway Construction Corporation, are of vital importance to the infrastructure expansion plans of China. The Group has 46 subsidiaries, including 28 wholly owned subsidiaries, 15 holding subsidiaries, 4 branch companies and 3 joint venture subsidiaries. CREC's construction teams are found in over 1,000 cities throughout China. In addition to the core business of construction, the company does surveying & design, installation, manufacturing, R&D, technical consulting, capital management as well as international economic and trade activities.
CREC has shown strong financial performance in recent years, as is shown in its financial results below (for its full annual report please click here). The company signed new contracts worth ¥929.6 ($149.2) billion dollars last year (2013), while existing contract revenue was ¥1.38 trillion ($222.3 billion).
|
2013 |
2012 |
Change % |
Revenue |
¥540.4($86.7) billion |
¥465.6 ($74.7) billion |
16.1% |
Gross profit |
¥40.3 ($6.5) billion |
¥35.6 ($5.7) billion |
13.4% |
Net Profit |
¥9.4 ($1.5) billion |
¥7.4 ($1.2) billion |
26.8% |
Three sources constitute the majority of CREC’s revenue: railways, highways and municipal construction. Last year the company built 4,843 kilometres of railways, 1,008 kilometres of new highways and 199 kilometres of light railway and subway lines. Notable projects include:
Railway lines |
Highways |
Municipal works |
Nanjing - Hangzhou |
Dali – Lijiang |
Beijing Subway |
Hangzhou - Ningbo |
Fengjie – Wuxi |
Shenzhen Subway |
Tianjin - Qinhuangdao |
Kunming – Bangkok |
Shanghai Metro |
Xiamen - Shenzhen |
118 kilometres in Ethiopia |
Guangzhou Subway |
Addis-Ababa railway |
Jiujiang Yangtze River |
Shenyang 4th Ring Road |
Tbilisi railway |
Bristol Grieg cable bridge (Morocco) |
Liuzhou Guangya Bridge |
Other business areas in which CERC operates are: engineering equipment manufacturing, surveying, design, consulting, property development and natural resources mining, with the latter two showing the fastest growth.
Increasingly important, but often overlooked, is the China Railway Resources Group (CRRG), responsible for precious metals, ferrous and non-ferrous metals extraction, as well as logistics and surveying. With a strong focus on mineral extraction, specifically gold, copper, coal, cobalt, silver, nickel, zinc, lead and graphite, the Group has an active presence in Qinghai, Xinjiang, Inner Mongolia and Heilongjiang (where CRRC and Baoan Steel have signed an agreement to cooperate over a graphite mine). International operations in Congo, Australia, Laos and Venezuela (CREC began construction in 2009 of the Anaco-Tinaco railroad, an 800 million USD project to build a 471 km high speed railway line across the country).