China South Locomotive and Rolling Stock Corp Ltd announced on Wednesday that its wholly owned subsidiary, CSR Zhuzhou Electric Locomotive Co Ltd, has won a bid to work on a metro project in Ankara, Turkey, obtaining a contract worth 2.5 billion yuan($392.3 million).

That amount is equivalent to about 3.1 percent of the company's operating revenue in 2011.

The contract marked the largest order the Chinese railway industry has received from Europe, as well as the first time that China has exported technology used to make metro vehicles to that region.

The first batch of products for the project, consisting of 15 metro vehicles, will be delivered within 20 months of the signing of the contract and the rest will be delivered in 39 months. The vehicles will run on the four main subway lines in Ankara.

In the first half of 2012, CSR received 5 billion yuan in sales income from overseas markets, an amount up 100 percent year-on-year, the company reported.

CSR has also placed a priority on having some of the work in the metro project take place locally in Ankara.

That work will be carried out in two steps, which will lead to the completion of about 51 percent of the project.

Zhuzhou Electric Locomotive plans to invest in a join venture in Turkey that can produce 200 vehicles a year. Local residents are to make up 80 percent of the staff members in the join venture.