Originally, SIEG was a joint venture between a Shanghai company and a German company Interkrenn. When the JV stopped, SIEG adoped the idea of the generic corporations such as CMEC, which usually is a short form for 'China Machinery Imports & Exports Corporation'. CMEC normally followed by the name of the city or province it was in, as a company name. So back then, in SIEGs case, they would say that SIEG is a short form for ''Shanghai Imports & Exports Group' depending on who asked, because CMEC or CMC were and to a certain extent still are financially and politically powerful, most powerful of which was/is the Beijing branch, parent which owned ALL Chinese engineering based factories pre-privatization. Post privatization, CMEC/CMC Beijing are still silent partners with limited share holding in most such companies which were born pre-privatization. This relationship is a little complicated to explain.