Ningbo Aoli Machinery Co. Ltd., a plastics machinery maker, just expanded manufacturing space at its Ningbo, Zhejiang province, plant by a third. Sales manager Yanfei Jin said the company started production in the new 2,000-square-meter building in October.

The company makes preform injection presses and stretch blow molding machines for molding PET and polypropylene bottles from 50 milliliters to 20 liters.

Jin said Aoli is going to introduce in three months a new model of high-speed preform injection press in the 360- to 500-metric-ton range.

"The new machine will cut our current cycle time by half," she said.

The privately held company employs 60, runs one factory in Ningbo and one in Taizhou, Zhejiang province, and sells 70-80 machines per year.

"About 98 percent of sales are from exports," Jin said at K 2007 in D¨¹sseldorf.

Jin declined to disclose sales, but she said they are growing more than 40 percent annually.