The company, one of China’s largest press makers, announced July 14 that sales in its most recent fiscal year, ending March 31, were down 31 percent, to HK$1.6 billion (US$210 million or 1.41 billion yuan) and profit fell about 70 percent, to HK$85.7 million (US$11.1 million or 75.6 million yuan).

Chen Hsong said sales fell dramatically as more than 10,000 factories in the South China export hub of Guangdong pProvince went out of business, with export centers in Shanghai and other East China cities experiencing similar problems.

The company said it does not expect a recovery in global markets until 2010, under the most optimistic scenarios, but argued that China could be one of the first countries to rebound, pushed by the Chinese government’s 4 trillion yuan (US$590 billion) economic stimulus spending.

“As long as China continues in its current relaxed monetary policy and assistance to industries, the group believes that its customers’ demand for injection molding machines will rebound to more normal levels,” the company said, “The financial year of 2009 is one of the most difficult operating environments that the group has ever encountered in its 50-year history.”

Chen Hsong said it adopted a new marketing strategy, undertook a program of belt-tightening and reduced headcount from 3,700 to 2,500, to better position it to capture future opportunities. The company said those measures helped it improve cash flow and boost its cash balance to HK$408 million (US$52.6 million or 359.9 million yuan) in the second half of the fiscal year.

The company said it introduced a number of new products during the Chinaplas 2009 show, held May 18-22 in Guangzhou, including an energy-saving large tonnage machine with a servo-drive that cuts energy consumption by 70 percent, and a new all-electric machine, the SM-50P, that will become its primary product in international markets when those countries recover.