The overall volume of overseas construction contracts clinched by China Railway Construction Corporation (CRCC) exceeded 120 billion yuan (US$16 billion) between January 2006 and September 2007, Board Chairman Li Guorui said Friday.

The delegate to the ongoing 17th National Congress of the Communist Party of China attributed the rapid expansion to the company's intensified cultivation of African market in recent years, especially after the Beijing Summit of the Forum on China- Africa Cooperation held in November 2006.

The biggest contract involved a 1,315-km railway in Nigeria worth US$8.3 billion.

Prior to that, the CRCC together with the CITIC Group procured a speedway project in Algeria involving a contractual investment of US$6.25 billion.

Li said the CRCC also teamed up with other enterprises to contract a high-speed railway project in Turkey involving an investment of US$1.27 billion. But he declined to disclose the shares the CRCC held, saying it is "corporate secret".

In the past, the company mainly exported labor to take over the design, construction and supervision of overseas contracts, Li said.