Ann: Agreement for anticipated Aspiral China sales approx USD45M, page-207

For context, please read @willchang409's post in the media thread here, about Xiecheng Environmental/iTEST advertising to hire 36 more staff.

It looks like Xiecheng Environmental are expanding their presence in Western Hubei (and Shaanxi). Almost all the announced work done to date with MABR installations has been done on the Eastern side of Hubei, where Wuhan has more influence. The western side of the province is the mountainous/forested side, and I suspect doing business on that side of the province is different to the area around Wuhan. Enshi is also 500km (around 7 hours by car) away from Wuhan, making central project management and supervision more difficult.



The Australian equivalency would be if a Melbourne, VIC based business was wanting to do business in Mildura, or a Sydney, NSW based business was wanting to do business in Broken Hill. Same state expansion, but different set of business contacts and attitude.

While the Business Management Division and Lab will be set up at Caidian District in Wuhan, Environmental Engineering Division staff will be sent out into the field to advise on and supervise projects in Western Hubei and Shaanxi. The operation and maintenance staff will then be responsible for keeping the MABR units in working order.





As @willchang409 stated, it gives a very strong signal that iTEST/Xiecheng are very serious about covering all of Hubei province in MABR plants, while also expanding out to other provinces such as Shaanxi. There were questions posed by some here a few months ago about whether iTEST would reach the 3 year, minimum $45 million USD/66,000 m3/d contract conditions. Hiring a further 36 staff for Western Hubei and Shaanxi, on top of the ones that have already been installing MABR around Wuhan gives a pretty good indication about their future intentions. MABR is a vehicle for iTEST to take their environmental management business (Xiecheng) to the next level and build it into a nationally recognisable and respected business.

I will be fascinated to see in future if they can manage to break out of the service area division and win projects in other areas such as villages and townships. For now we will watch for further contract announcements, and see if any other provinces show interest in MABR installations for service areas.