Pilkington venture plans float

BRITISH glass maker Pilkington's joint venture in China plans to float on Shanghai's A and B share markets to fund expansion.

Shanghai Yaohua Pilkington, believed to be the biggest Sino-British joint venture on the mainland, is 12.5 per cent owned by Pilkington, 12.5 per cent by non-Chinese investment company UDI, and 75 per cent by the Beijing government.

''There are plans to float the company on the Shanghai stock market but these plans are at an early stage,'' Pilkington spokesman Tony Cove said yesterday.

The most prominent of the joint venture's expansion projects is the construction of a new production line to increase output by half.

The new line, representing an investment of about US$90 million, will turn out 2,800 tonnes of clear and tinted glass per week, to add to the existing weekly clear glass capacity of 5,000 tonnes.

''We need to increase capacity because there is a good market for glass,'' Mr Cove said.