Business
10:54, 19-Jun-2018
Auto parts supplier Magna to set up NEV joint ventures with BAIC
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Magna, one of the world’s largest suppliers of auto parts, has announced plans to set up two joint ventures with Beijing Electric Vehicle Co., which will see the Canadian company strengthen its position in the Chinese NEV market.
Beijing Electric Vehicle Co. is a subsidiary of the BAIC Group, and sold 100,000 new energy vehicles in China last year, a 100 percent increase on 2016.
The latest partnership with Magna comes after BAIC Group chairman Xu Heyi told China Daily last December the motoring conglomerate would completely phase out gasoline vehicles by 2025.
Magna, described by Business Insider as “the biggest player you’ve never heard of in the auto industry,” supplies parts to leading vehicle manufacturers and achieved 2016 global sales of 36.4 billion US dollars.
The Canadian company has been present in China since 1996, employing 20,000 Chinese workers in more than 40 plants across the country.
Last year, Magna Asia president Jim Tobin said “our financial forecasting indicates we are going to be in the range of six billion US dollars (40 billion yuan) by 2019,” a figure almost twice as high as the 3.1 billion US dollars in sales achieved in 2016.
The new joint ventures are set to take over BAIC Group’s plant in Zhenjiang, Jiangsu Province, with plans to eventually manufacture 180,000 vehicles per year after production begins in 2020.