Conti Breaks Ground at New Plant Site

On June 12 representatives from Continental conducted a groundbreaking ceremony in China’s Changshu City. At the new Changshu City site, a hundred kilometres northwest of Shanghai, the company’s Automotive Systems division will build a 67 million euro hydraulic brake systems plant. This facility should be ready to begin production in the autumn of 2008, and by 2011 should employ around one thousand local workers.

The new plant will be built in phases in the Changshu Southeast Economic Development Zone, located in Jiangsu Province. Production will focus upon the manufacture of hydraulic brake products and services such as calipers for front and rear axles and brake boosters for all classes of vehicle. Annual production capacity by 2011 should reach 2 million brake actuation units and 4.6 million brake calliper units, with the factory supplying numerous OEM customers in China, Japan and Korea.

Dr. Karl-Thomas Neumann, president of Continental Automotive Systems and member of the Executive Board, Continental AG, credited the fast growing Asian automotive market as a key driver in the company’s development in the region: “With its rapid growth during the past decade, Asia has indisputably become a key marketplace in the future development of the global automotive industry. The new plant in Changshu will bring our products and engineering services even closer to our customers in the region.”

“By 2010, we want to double our sales in Asia,” said Jay Kunkel, president of the Asia Region and member of the Management Board at Continental Automotive Systems, as he described the company’s strategic goal in Asia. “The new plant in Changshu, will become the key production base of our hydraulic brake products in East Asia. As the market leader in hydraulic brake technologies, we are committed to supplying our Asian customers with the best products, the best services and with uncompromising quality.”

Continental Automotive Systems began operations in China in the mid 1990s and opened its Asia headquarters in Shanghai in January 2006. Today it has four plants and one winter test centre in China supplying Electronic Brake Systems, Hydraulic Brake Systems, Body Electronics and sensor products to China’s automotive market.