SHIJIAZHUANG -- China Railway Rolling Stock Corp. (CRRC) broke ground on a 10 billion yuan ($1.53 billion) smart-equipment manufacturing center Sunday.

CRRC's eco-friendly industrial park is in Kaiping development zone in Tangshan City, an iron and steel city in North China's Hebei province.

The park covers an area of 120 hectares. It will be a hub for energy-saving and smart equipment manufacturing industries thanks to investment of 3.3 billion yuan in the first phase.

The premises will include a new energy equipment center, an exports base for Central and Eastern Europe, and bases for research and development as well as water treatment equipment.

The CRRC aims to push the upgrade of industries in Tangshan. In the next five years, it will put no less than 1,500 new energy vehicles on the city's roads.

Formed through the merger of former rivals China North Railway (CNR) and China South Railway (CSR), Beijing-based CRRC is the world's largest supplier of rail transit equipment. Its products have been exported to about 100 countries and regions.