China'S Overseas Flat Glass Revolution

It is well known that China started to develop float glass techniques in the early 1960s by its independent research. Subsequently, in 1971 China's first trial production line for float glass was built in Luoyang City. In 1991, China exported its first float glass production line of 300/tpd capacity to Indonesia, where production began. Shortly afterwards, lines were established in Vietnam, Bangladesh, Iran, Algeria and so on. In this article the author discusses how Chinese-made float and flat glass lines are having an increasingly global influence. The article shows how market share of float glass technology and equipment is expanding. Chinese float glass lines exported from 2001-2009 are listed.