Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao at Anwell's solar factory. Anwell chairman Franky Fan is the nearest to the right of the Premier.

THE VIP toured Anwell Technologies’ high-tech factory in Dongguan, and listened to its executive chairman, Franky Fan, outline the company’s work and vision.

Suitably impressed, the VIP said: “Your factory brims with dynamism. Your market dominance is the result of advanced technology, high productivity and high quality.”

The VIP was none other than China’s Prime Minister Wen Jiabao.

The factory he visited for 30 minutes over the past weekend is where Anwell –  whose shares are listed on the  Singapore Exchange - is creating equipment that manufactures solar panels.

Mr Wen said: “Solar panels are a key component of clean, renewable energy, which is an important direction for our power generation and energy industries. Thus, China looks to you for its power-saving and new energy infrastructure.”

Anwell has an ambition to be a key player in China’s solar energy business, announcing recently that it aims to become one of the world’s top 10
solar module producers by 2013.

The solar energy business uses common technologies with optical disc business, which has been Anwell’s core business all these years.

Worldwide, Anwell is one of only two manufacturers of equipment that replicates Blu-ray discs. Sony of Japan makes the equipment too, but only for its own use.

Anwell is the only manufacturer in the world which produces equipment for manufacturing optical discs such as

DVDRs as well as manufactures the discs themselves (about 60 million discs a month).

Solar energy customer

For its first solar energy customer, Anwell has signed a
preliminary agreement with Brazil Energy for the sale of a turnkey production line for thin-film silicon solar modules.

Brazil Energy intends to purchase the Anwell Sunlite-120 line with an initial capacity of 40 MW (megawatts) per year.  Anwell is on track to complete the line in 1Q2009 and will ramp up the capacity to 120MW by 2010.

Mr Frank Fan, executive chairman and CEO, said: “We are very honoured that
Premier Wen Jiabao graced our solar equipment plant with his presence. His visit has inspired us to work even harder to address China’s growing need for renewable energy.

"We are on schedule to have our 40MW fully automatic solar equipment online by 1Q09. We won’t let China down.”

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