Poland has become the first country in the 27-member bloc to open its doors to a Chinese company on a public works contract, thanks to the firm's controversial low bid that beat out several European competitors.

In a place where farmers grew potatoes a year ago, a team of Chinese workers install metal frames to be filled with concrete for a future bypass at Wiskitki, a village about 50-kilometres (31-miles) west of Warsaw.

"These two stretches of the A2 are a priority project for us," Wang Junmin, deputy chief executive of the China Overseas Engineering Group (COVEC), told AFP.

And they are a bigger priority for Poland. When the ex-communist country joined the European Union in 2004, it had practically no motorway network to speak of.

Today, Warsaw's goal is to complete 1,800 kilometres of highway by 2012 -- including this link between the German and Polish capitals -- to be well prepared to co-host the Euro 2012 football championships.

"Besides the 500 workers who came in January, another 300 will soon arrive from China as reinforcement," said Wang. "Together with the Poles, we should have 1,300 people at the building site."

But COVEC may need even more labourers to make up for time lost when work was all but frozen last week after the firm's Polish sub-contractors halted supplies because of unpaid invoices.

COVEC sent its CEO Fang Yuanming to Warsaw to break the deadlock.

After several days of talks at the Polish ministry for infrastructure, the two sides reached an agreement under which the group pledged to cover the late payments by May 30.

"We will return to the building site as soon as we have the money," said Robert Grzybowski, owner of Techno Car, which is owed 131,000 euros (185,000 dollars) by COVEC for trucks and excavators.

To win its first public works contract in an EU state, COVEC bid to build nearly 50 kilometres of the motorway for 1.3 billion zlotys (330 million euros, 465 million dollars), or what was considered half the estimated price tag.

The choice of a Chinese company sparked controversy from the start as the Polish chamber of road builders accused COVEC of unfair pricing.

"It is certain that they will lose money there," Wojciech Milusi, president of the chamber, told AFP.

"They're ready to do it to have a good reference for bidding in other building tenders in the EU. And since this is a company controlled by the state, the losses will be covered by China itself," he added.

The Chinese group says it can build a kilometre of motorway for 6.6 million euros, underbidding the price of its most expensive rival by nearly 200 percent.

COVEC management explains the rock-bottom costs by "our own special style of management", which includes collective dormitories with bunk beds, set up in an empty school the company has rented nearby.

At noon, lunch is delivered straight to the building site.

"The Chinese work day and night, 12 hours a day, seven days a week, and even during holidays," said Krzysztof Lenarczyk, a Wiskitki town hall official in charge of infrastructure.

"They started work in January (when public construction works are suspended in Poland) and they worked throughout the worst sub-zero weather," he added.

"The work is no longer as tough as it was," said Xu Chengbing, a 38-year-old worker from the Anhui province in eastern China, who returned to the building site early in the morning after working a 12-hour night shift.

He said he does not yet know exactly how much he will earn since the wages are sent directly to China.

"We don't get money in Poland," he said as he munched on a rice pudding with Chinese jujube dates, part of a meal prepared by Chinese cooks in a garage re-fitted as a kitchen.

"We don't need it after all -- we get both accommodation and food here," he said.

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