Chinese 'Homes in a Box' Win Global Orders

Chinese factory-made buildings are winning repeat orders overseas as buyers turn to modular hotels, apartments and data centers that can be shipped in sections and assembled on site within weeks, China Central Television reported yesterday.

Chinese companies exported 1.68 billion yuan (US$234 million) worth of prefabricated buildings through Shenzhen ports in the first four months of this year, up 19.6 percent from a year earlier, according to Shenzhen Customs. The products were shipped to more than 150 countries and regions.

Modular construction divides a building into factory-made units that are transported to a site for assembly. Ceilings, floors, utility pipes and even bathroom waterproofing can be completed on production lines before the modules leave China.

One British buyer said 63 modules for a Chinese-made senior apartment project were installed within two weeks of arriving at a UK port. A customer in Papua New Guinea said 84 modules became a fully functioning hotel after spending more than a month at sea, according to the report.

Demand is also rising from the global data-center industry. One Chinese digital-energy equipment company said it had delivered modular prefabricated data-center projects with more than 1,000 megawatts of combined capacity in markets including Malaysia, Indonesia, the Middle East and Italy.

At an intelligent construction industrial park in Shenzhen, a multistory factory can produce about 20,000 to 30,000 building modules a year. Parallel production, automated warehouses and smart manufacturing lines can shorten construction time by more than 50 percent compared with conventional building methods.

The factory model also demands greater precision, with the position of reinforcing bars and screws controlled to the millimeter before production begins.

The global modular construction market is forecast to exceed US$142.8 billion by 2030, according to a market research estimate cited in the report. Chinese manufacturers are seeking a larger share by combining design, automated production, shipping and overseas installation.