Hyundai Heavy Industries, the world's biggest shipbuilder and a leading construction equipment manufacturer, last week completed a wheel loader factory in Taian, China.

With an investment of $49 million, the factory, which specializes in 3-ton and 5-ton wheel loaders, will help the company achieve annual sales of 10,000 wheel loaders in China by 2015.

The new Taian factory, which has an annual production capacity of 8,000 wheel loaders, will solidify Hyundai Heavy's position as a total construction equipment maker in China along with the company's other construction equipment and parts plants in Jiangsu, Beijing, and Shandong province. The new plant is also expected to improve parts supply, logistics, and sales between the local plants.

Last September, Hyundai Heavy achieved accumulated global sales of 350,000 units of construction equipment 26 years after it started the business. For the nine months ended Sept. 30, Hyundai Heavy recorded total sales of $3 billion, a 37-percent increase from the same period last year.