French electrical engineering group Cegelec announced Friday it has acquired industrial firm Alstom Malaysia in a move to strengthen its presence in Asia.

Cegelec president Claude Darmon told a news conference the group had sealed a pact to buy a 49 percent stake in Alstom Malaysia from its French-based parent company Alstom Industry.

The other 51 percent is held by three Malaysian shareholders.

"We believe the crisis is now over in Malaysia and we see a very brilliant prospect for the country and that this is a good time now to invest here," he said.

Alstom will be renamed Cegelec Malaysia, he said.

The Malaysian firm currently has book orders of RM35 million and aimed to multiply its annual turnover from RM40 million to RM160-200 million by 2005, he added.

Apart from Malaysia, Cegelec also operates in Singapore and Indonesia.

Difficult markets

Damon said the group, which is involved in engineering, infrastructure, oil and gas, and maintenance works, was also eyeing projects in Thailand, Burma, Vietnam and Brunei.

But he said Cegelec was not interested in the China and Indian markets, describing them as "very difficult countries" to work in due to strict local conditions.

"We forecast 15 percent of our growth will come from Asia in the next five years... Asia's growth is fuelled by infrastructure and the potential for development is much higher here than in Europe," he said.

The group, which employs 25,000 people in 24 countries, records annual sales of around three billion euro (US$2.6 billion) but aims to raise this to four billion euro over the next five years, he added.

Cegelec was an offshoot of Alstrom's contracting arm but came out on its own following a management buy-out in July last year.