Hyundai Heavy Industries Co. is raising its bets on the construction equipment business as it begins making compact wheel loaders at its new factory in China.

The world’s top shipyard said Tuesday it had completed the $49 million plant in Tai’an in eastern China with an annual capacity of 8,000 five-ton and three-ton wheel loaders, which are used to scoop up and move materials such as dirt and sand.

“The company plans to set the plant as another base for growth in the world’s largest wheel loader market by accomplishing its goal of increasing the output to 10,000 units by 2015,” Hyundai said in a statement.

Demand for construction vehicles has been soaring in China on the back of gargantuan infrastructure projects, brisk industrialization and rural development, driving up revenues for earth-moving machinery makers and prompting latecomers to beef up investments.

China accounts for about 77 percent of the global wheel loader market, or 200,000 units, Hyundai estimates.

The Korean shipbuilder has intensified its construction gear business since 1985 as it seeks a fresh growth driver at home and abroad.

It logged $3 billion in sales of earth-moving equipment as of the third quarter of this year, up 37 percent from the same period a year ago, exporting more than 85 million units of its flagship excavators.

With the new plant, Hyundai said it now runs four facilities in China, producing excavators and forklifts and other tools and parts.

The Ulsan-based company also built an excavator plant in India in 2008. It is working on a $150 million project for a factory in Rio de Janeiro to make excavators and loaders there.

By Shin Hyon-hee (heeshin@heraldcorp.com)