Autoliv, the worldwide leader in automotive safety systems, has acquired another 20 percent of the shares in Nanjing Honggouang-Autoliv Safety Systems Company, Ltd. (NHA), thereby increasing its interest in this Chinese seatbelt company to 70%.
The NHA joint venture in Nanjing has sales of $50 million and 530 employees. The major customers are Peugeot/Citroen, Volkswagen, General Motors, Ford, Mazda and Cherry.
The company was established in 1989 as a 50/50 joint venture to deliver seatbelts to Volkswagen in Shanghai. In 2004, the shareholder agreement was changed and Autoliv received management control over NHA although the ownership interest was unchanged.
NHA is one of Autoliv's nine operations in China. In Shanghai, Autoliv operates one seatbelt plant (producing mainly for export to Australia and Korea), one airbag plant, one steering wheel plant and one weaving plant for seatbelt webbing. In addition, Autoliv recently opened one plant for airbag inflators and one plant for safety electronics. In Changchun, in the northeastern region of China, Autoliv has one seatbelt plant, and one combined seatbelt and airbag plant. In Guangzhou, in southern China, Autoliv recently opened a seatbelt plant supporting mainly Japanese vehicle manufacturers.
Last year, passenger vehicle production in China more than doubled from 2002 to 3 million. By 2008, the production is expected to almost double again to exceed 5 million passenger vehicles.
Autoliv Inc. develops and manufactures automotive safety systems for all major automotive manufacturers in the world. Together with its joint ventures Autoliv has 80 facilities with nearly 39,000 employees in 30 vehicle-producing countries. In addition, the company has development and engineering centers in six countries around the world, including 20 test tracks, more than any other automotive safety supplier.
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