"Bingshan Group has access to use world famous brands such as Sanyo and Fuji under the agreements, making our market share increase quickly and reduce promotion costs," Wang Zhiqiang, vice general manager of the Group said.

Sanyo, Japan's industrial refrigeration giant, built a world-level compressor research center in Bingshan Group. "It will benefit us greatly," Wang said.

"Bingshan not only has famous brands, but also has independent intellectual properties," said Mu Chuanjiang, general manager of Bingshan Group. "Through joint ventures, we can get access to its core technologies, after assimilation and innovation, we can have our own intellectual properties," Wu added.

Cooperation with foreign partners, especially the world's top 500 companies, made Bingshan know more about technical barriers in the world market. "We have no distribution networks in developed countries but we can draw support from our partners' distribution networks," said Mu.

With the aid of its partners, Bingshan can enter the high-grade markets all over the world, according to Mu.

Apart from joint ventures, money spent on research and development accounted three to five percent of its subsidiaries' total sales, according to Mu.

"We started attaching more importance to technological staff building from 1970s, the flooding of foreign enterprises into China from the reform and opening policy forced us to pay more attention on brands," said Mu.

Bingshan developed large-sized screw refrigeration equipments, closing a gap in the field in Chinese market. Currently Bingshan's large-sized refrigeration system controlled 70 percent of the market share.

In order to protect Bingshan brand, the company founded an intellectual property department, which is responsible for registering brands and manage patents.

Bingshan brand was registered in more than 60 countries including Thailand, Japan and member countries from the World Intellectual Property Organization, laying foundation for entering the world market.

"We still have a long way to become a world-level famous brand, we need some ten years time, more interdisciplinary staff and capital to reach the goal," Mu said.

With 46 subsidiaries-33 sino-foreign joint ventures, 12 wholly owned companies and one listed company under its arm, Bingshan Group has 12,000 workers and 10 billion yuan in total assets. It recorded over 10 billion yuan in sales last year, ranking eighth in China's top 100 machinery industry.

Bingshan was honored China's Famous Brand title last year.

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