China's motor town clinches key deals ( 2003-06-30 07:40) (China Daily)
A string of deals involving the auto industry and worth over 7 billion yuan
(US$846 million) were sealed at the weekend. The 22 agreements were made at the
auto parts industrial park, located in the Shanghai International Automobile
Town, a heavily-invested project.
The overseas and domestic companies behind the deals are expected to develop
into a powerful force to bolster Shanghai's ambitions to build an inclusive
world-level auto base.
The deals represent the inflow of US$320 million worth of contractual
overseas investment as well as 4.4 billion yuan (US$532 million) worth of
contractual investment from domestic companies.
The projects involved are mostly connected with the manufacture of automobile
spare parts or auxiliaries, which face a fast-growing demand from the soaring
domestic auto industry.
"The projects signal a kind of `industrial clustering effect,' and that is
just what we expect to see at our auto town project here,'' said Vice-Mayor Tang
Dengjie.
Evolving from a former subsidiary facility of Shanghai Volkswagen five years
ago, the industrial park has, since September 2001, been expected to play a
greater role following a decision by the city government to upgrade it into a
significant part of the auto town, located at the city's northwestern Jiading
District. The area's operations include auto-related manufacturing, trade,
research and development (R&D) plus sporting activities.
The park currently hosts over 180 overseas and domestic businesses, involving
a contractual domestic investment of 16.4 billion yuan (US$1.98 billion) plus
US$880 million in foreign investment.
"We are planning to have our joint venture (at the park) become our purchase
centre, R&D centre and production centre in Asia, that's why we decided to
double the investment capital here,'' said Anton Usow, executive manager of
Shanghai Kostal-Huayang Automotive Electric Co Ltd, a subsidiary of the
German-based Kostal Group.
Seeing its local business grow at 30 per cent annually since 1998, his
company is to add another US$40 million-plus to its capital pool -- according to
a deal signed on Saturday -- to better back up its expansion plans.
"The auto parts companies at the park should be a key bolstering factor for
our group's future growth,'' said Hu Maoyuan, president of Shanghai Automotive
Industry Corp (SAIC), one of China's largest automakers.
The company has worked out an ambitious development blueprint aimed at
raising its annual vehicle output from the current 410,000 units to over 1
million by the end of 2007.
SAIC is ready to relocate all its auto parts manufacturing businesses in the
central city areas to the eight-square-kilometre park, Hu said.