For Airbus SAS, the world's largest commercial aircraft maker, and nuclear reactor company Areva SA, Chinese President Hu Jintao's three-day trip to France which started yesterday may mean one thing: orders.
Hu has a record of bringing business to the countries he visits. He went to Australia in October with a US$21 billion contract to buy natural gas. His May visit to Russia produced a statement asking companies there to help build a gas pipeline between China's eastern and western provinces.
Alsthom SA, PSA Peugeot Citroen and Suez SA are among French companies banking on more business from China.
Among business leaders who will meet with Hu in Paris are Areva chief executive Anne Lauvergeon, Renault SA chief executive Louis Schweitzer, Henri Proglio who heads Veolia Environnement SA and Peugeot chief executive Jean-Martin Folz.
Airbus signed letters of understanding in April to sell 30 jetliners to five Chinese airlines in a deal worth US$1.89 billion when French Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin visited the country. Most of those pacts have yet to be turned into official contracts. The sale involved four A330s, 16 A319s and 10 A320s.
Peugeot, Europe's No. 2 carmaker, sold 104,000 vehicles in China last year through a joint venture with Dongfeng Motor Corp and said this month it will invest 600 million euros (US$765 million) to increase Chinese production capacity to 300,000 vehicles.
Alstom, which has built power stations that generate a fifth of the world's electricity and has made two-thirds of the world's high-speed trains, is bidding for more contracts in China.
The company has helped build nuclear power stations in the country and is supplying turbine generators for the Three Gorges Dam. It has also supplied trains for the Shanghai subway.
State-owned Areva, whose Framatome ANP unit is the world's biggest maker of nuclear reactors, has designed six reactors for China and is seeking to increase orders there.
"We are eagerly looking forward to the call for tenders for the next four reactors," said Charles Hufnagel, an Areva spokesman.
Veolia Environnement, the world's biggest water company, has signed several contracts in China including a 50-year, 8.5 billion euro contract to distribute water in Shenzhen and a 20-year, 50 million-euro contract to operate a wastewater-treatment plant in Beijing.
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