SMT targets to be among Asia's top 5 EMS companies in 4 years' time

Mainboard-listed Surface Mount Technology, or SMT, wants to be one of Asia's top five providers of electronics manufacturing services within four years.

That is according to its chairman and managing director Dr Chan Kei Biu.

SMT also plans to be among the world's top ten EMS companies before the end of the decade.

Despite the current downturn in the electronics sector, Dr Chan said he is optimistic that the market for floppy disk drives and CD-roms will grow by 10 to 20 percent a year in the next few years.

The Hong Kong-based company presently has a 20-percent share of the market for floppy disk drives, and 10 percent of the CD-rom market.

SMT is already getting a lot of new orders from Japan and is poised to expand into China.

Dr Chan Kei Biu, Chairman & Managing Director, Surface Mount Technology said: "We are looking hard first into China. Southern China is quite a hot economic spot and the next one is Shanghai, there'll be a lot of projects and a lot of new customers will be up there... We hope to have a manufacturing presence up there in 2002 and 2003, or even sooner."