Futian Company, a Beijing-based automobile manufacturer, Saturday donated 10 sealed ambulances to China's national center for the prevention and treatment of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS).

To date, the company has donated a total of 22 ambulances to the country's fight against the flu-like epidemic. The donated ambulances are valued at 4.5 million yuan (544,000 US dollars).

Sources from Futian Company said that ambulance capacity has been stretched to the limit in the fight against SARS for quite some time. The company has been receiving an influx of orders from north China's Beijing municipality, Inner Mongolia autonomous region and Shanxi province. Its technical personnel have thus been working around the clock to fill the orders, delivering 15 specially-designed SARS ambulances every day since May 1.

Prior to May 1, the company filled a rush order of 80 ambulances in eight days for the Beijing First Aid Center, the sources noted. It required the urgent overseas procurement of anti-corrosive materials from Malaysia, Thailand and Hong Kong.

Futian Company sold 23,000 automobiles in April. For the first four months of the year, it sold 78,800 automobiles, a rise of 83.6 percent over the same period last year. And its profits quadrupled during the same period.

(Xinhua News Agency May 11, 2003)