Veolia: A China Environmental Play? (VE 1H05 Conf Call Quotes)

China is stepping up efforts to address concerns about the state of its environment. For example, the government is focused on improving air and water quality in Beijing in time for the Olympics in 2008. French environmental management services company Veolia Environnement (ticker: VE) hopes to capitalize on this new focus. Key quotes from Chairman Henri Proglio during management's earnings results conference call:

We also have some nice contracts in China in waste management, for example. Here we've seen strong growth in particular, especially in recycling. We're looking at standards in China now that are very similar to what we do in Europe. Again, we're using world-class technology there.

We also have some water contracts with Disneyland in Hong Kong, but that's just because of the notoriety of the Disneyland brand name.

But we're basically seeing some very nice contracts in medium-sized Chinese cities, 2m to 3m people, really strengthened our foothold in that country. In fact, now in China we're seen as being a market leader.

(Quotes are from the CCBN StreetEvents transcript.)

VE chart.