SHENYANG, Aug. 28 (Xinhua) -- China's Northern Heavy Industries Group Co., Ltd. (NHI) has acquired a controlling stake of 70 percent of France's NFM, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Germany's Wirth Group, NHI chairman Geng Hongchen said here on Tuesday.

The move would bring NFM's advanced technologies and brands of tunnel boring machines to NHI, said Geng, adding the deal was reached after two years of negotiation.

NFM had already been providing technologies and key machine parts for NHI before the deal. A Wirth representative was quoted by an NHI statement as saying the deal meant both sides started cooperation in the field of capital.

NFM has sold 25 shield tunneling machines to China since it became a unit of Wirth Group in 1991.

NHI and NFM would set up two research centers in Shenyang, China, and Lyon, France, in the next three years, according to an NHI official.

NHI, based in Shenyang, capital of northeast China's Liaoning Province, has so far won 1.9 billion yuan worth of contracts involving 18 shield tunneling machines in the Chinese market.