Steel-tools maker Top-Eastern Drills Co Ltd opened on Wednesday a new plant in Dalian, Liaoning province.

With a total investment of 3.5 billion yuan ($562.1 million), the newly built Dalian Top-Eastern Industrial Park covers an area of 670,000 square meters in the Dalian Free Trade Zone.

The first phase of the project, which started operations on Wednesday, will produce 28,000 precise high-speed steel tools and 10,000 tons of high-speed rolled products for export per year.

"The annual sales volume is expected to exceed 2.2 billion yuan after the first phase reaches its designed capacity," said Qi Shumin, president of the company.

Established in 1994, Dalian-based TDC has grown into a group with 3,500 employees and 12 subsidiaries around the world. It has set up manufacturing bases and sales centers in the United States, Germany, the United Kingdom, Canada, Mexico, and Brazil.

According to Qi, the sales of TDC's main product, high-speed steel drills, account for 37 percent of the global market, ranking first in the world.

In recent years, TDC has acquired some overseas companies, including world-famous Werko GmbH of Germany and Greenfield Industries of the US.

The acquisitions helped the company to quickly become the top global maker of high-speed steel drills.