Beijing: A leading power and automation technology group, ABB, announced a plan to hire 5,000 new employees and double its orders and revenue in China to 4 billion dollars by the year 2008. China is currently ABB's third largest market, next to only Germany and the United States. Of ABB's 18 billion US dollars sales revenue worldwide, about 2 billion dollars come from China in 2004. Of its 105,000 employees, 7,000 already live and work in China, according to Jurgen Dormann, Chairman and CEO of ABB Ltd. ABB plans for China to exceed Germany in terms of sales and become its second largest market, Dormann said at Monday's news briefing in Beijing. Peter Leupp, CEO with ABB in China, said that China's plan to quadruple annual per capita GDP to 3,000 dollars by 2020 indicatesa continual demand for power and automation products. "The Olympic Games in 2008 and World Expo in 2010 will certainly drive foreign direct investment and infrastructure improvement," he said. Cao Yushu, an official with Chinese National Development and Reform Commission, said Monday that China was short 30 million kilowatt-hours of power in the first half of this year. One of the government efforts to reform the power supply is to contract out some of the improvements to foreign companies, such as ABB. Last week, ABB had just won contracts worth around 60 million dollars to supply a 500 KV gas insulated switchgear (GIS) and 12 sets of power transformers for the right-bank power plant of the Three Gorges dam project in China. ABB is a world leader in power and automation technologies that enable utility and industry customers to improve performances while lowering their environmental impact. The ABB Group of companies operates in about 100 countries worldwide.