The company has also set up subsidiaries that offer relevant services to equipment buyers. The profit margin of those service-oriented companies can be over 20 percent, according to Su.

As a result, the sales volume of the company increased to over 10 billion yuan ($1.64 billion) in 2012, from only 2 billion yuan ($328.2 million) in 2005, he said.

Song Zhiping, Chairman of China Building Material Group, agreed.

"The world cement output is expected to reach 4 billion tons in 2013. Of this total, 2.3 billion tons is produced in China. Overcapacity is a problem for the sector," Song said. "So, we focus on classification of different types of cement and increased added value in cement output. This has led to exorbitant profits for my company."

Information consumption

With China's economy posting a prolonged slowdown in the past two years, the Chinese Government has been trying to steer the country away from an over-reliance on investment and exports, to a more consumption-led growth pattern.

Information consumption, a field that involves e-commerce, information products and services consumption and intelligent terminal products, has been a highlight of government efforts and played an increasingly prominent role in driving economic development.

According to the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT), China's mobile Internet users have surpassed 800 million and the annual growth of information consumption is 29 percent from 2009 to 2012. Information consumption is expected to exceed 2 trillion yuan ($328.2 billion) in 2013.

Xiao Chunquan, Director of Operation and Coordination Bureau of the MIIT, said every 10 billion yuan ($1.64 billion) spent in information consumption will bring about 33.8 billion yuan ($5.55 billion) in GDP growth.

"Rapid growth in information consumption will greatly unleash consumption potential," he said.

Authorities are looking to support the consumption of information products and services and make the sector a new engine for boosting domestic demand and driving economic growth.

By the end of 2015, the consumption of information products and services is expected to grow at an annual pace of at least 20 percent to reach 3.2 trillion yuan ($518 billion). By then, e-commerce business revenues will exceed 18 trillion yuan ($2.95 trillion), with online retail sales hitting 3 trillion yuan ($492.3 billion), according to a guideline released by the State Council in August.

For the past nine months, the country's communication sector raised its business revenue to 870.9 billion yuan ($143 billion), up 8.6 percent year on year. The trading volume of domestic e-commerce market reached 7.5 trillion yuan ($1.23 trillion), an increase of 35 percent over the same period last year.

Last year's Singles Day (November 11) saw over 213 million Internet users swarm Taobao and Tmall, customer-to-customer and business-to-customer platforms operated by the Hangzhou-based Alibaba Group, for its 24-hour 50-percent-off carnival. Together the sites raked in a record 19.1 billion yuan ($3.07 billion), up 260 percent year on year.

Luo Wen, Chairman of China Research Institute of Electronic Information Industry Development, points out that there are several obstacles standing in the way of the development of information consumption, including poor information infrastructure, slow broadband access speed, flawed consumption environment and a lack of policy support.

At present, China's broadband penetration rate is only 21 percent, a far cry from that in developed countries, such as 95 percent in Canada, 80 percent in Japan, 79 percent in South Korea and 70 percent in the United States, said Luo, adding that China needs to greatly expand broadband access and actively create a favorable environment to promote consumption in the digital age.

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