The factory started in August with about 50 extrusion lines and several hundred employees, and will help the company meet demand spurred by the Chinese government’s economic stimulus spending on water, sewer and other infrastructure projects, said Victor Lin, vice president and director. Liansu is based in Foshan, Guangdong province.

The policy for China in the financial crisis has resulted in many new investments for civil engineering projects, he said. “The domestic market is very good.�

While some analysts have questioned whether China’s domestic market expansion can be sustained when spending from the 4 trillion yuan ($586 billion) government rescue package slows down, Lin said Liansu is not seeing any signs of a pullback in funding for projects and sometimes cannot supply enough to meet market demand.

The company has also broken ground on new extrusion plants in Daqing, Heilongjiang province, and in Urumqi, Xinjiang, that it expects to complete within two years.

A government Web site in Heilongjian said the Daqing plant would have capacity of 150,000 metric tons, but Lin said that figure is too high. He declined to specify what the actual capacity would be.

The firm is also planning a pipe factory near Xi’an, Shaanxi province, but work on that project is not as far along, Lin said.

Export markets remain weak, and as a result, he said the company is putting more focus on the domestic market, something of a switch from a dramatic 2007 plan Liansu had to start exporting significant amounts of smaller plastic pipe to the United States.

That announcement attracted attention in the American plastic pipe industry at the time, but Lin said transportation costs and American standards became obstacles.

The company has launched several new products and expanded into new markets in the economic downturn, developing polybutylene pipe, a drainage system with new fitting designs and a composite water and gas pipe made from plastic and galvanized steel.

The firm also this year launched a business making metal water faucets and related equipment, he said.

He spoke during an interview at the Canton Fair, which attracts more than 160,000 visitors. The fair kicked off Oct. 15 in Guangzhou and runs in three separate phases until Nov. 4.

Liansu makes a wide range of plastic and metal pipe and fittings from polypropylene, PVC, and polyethylene, along with wood-plastic composite decking, windows and doors.