East China's Shandong Province plans to become the country's largest truck producer, Vice-Governor Wang Renyuan has said at a provincial conference on the automobile industry.

By 2005, the province is expected to turn out 150,000 heavy trucks and buses, about 30 percent of the country's total, and by 2010, the figure is expected to top 250,000, according to the provincial government plan.

Local manufacturers will focus on the production of high-level and high-speed heavy trucks as well as luxury and environmentally-friendly buses, Wang noted.

Major heavy truck manufacturers in the province include the China Heavy Truck Group, which has a yearly capacity of 30,000 heavy trucks and is cooperating with Volvo to upgrade its products, and the Qingdao Automobile Factory of the First Auto Works (FAW).

(Xinhua News Agency August 9, 2003)