TPT September 2011

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108 S eptember 2011 ›
Global Marketplace
Our product lines:
Forming machines of butt-weld pipe fitting.
Beveling machines for pipe fittings.
Pipe end beveling machine for
Prefabricated pipe plant.
Pipe fittings for fire protection,
petro-chemical &pulp industry, etc.
Auto threading m/c for socket &nipple.
Transfer machine & special purpose m/e.
HAN SUM ENTERPRISE CO.LTD.
Factory: No.17, Shyr Jian St., Ert Chen, Kuan-Tien Ind.
Zone Tainan-Hsien, Taiwan, R.O.C.
Tel:886-6-6986411~2 Fax:886-6-6983830
:/
E-mail
NIPPLE
SUS & A234 SOCKET
› BHP Billiton started pumping oil from its first new well in the
Gulf since the Obama administration lifted the deepwater drilling
ban. The Australian natural resources group also said it had begun
begun drilling a second well;
› Exxon Mobil Corp, the largest US oil group, reported three
discoveries – one of them among the biggest in the Gulf in the
past decade – after drilling its first deepwater exploration well since
the BP spill.
Automotive
A big name, Volkswagen, makes a big
difference to a small city in China
A long-time Beijing resident, Jack Perkowski, recently has been
using his blog “The China Factor,” in Forbes, to call attention to the
potential of some smaller Chinese cities as factory sites.
In his conviction that the rising costs of manufacturing in China
should not drive foreign companies from the country, but only farther
inland, he devoted his 6 June post to “China’s Tier 2 and Tier 3
Cities.”
Himself a former auto parts supplier, Mr Perkowski considered in
particular Yizheng, a Jiangsu Province city just a 90-minute drive
from the Nanjing airport.
For setting up a factory, Yizheng – where in 1995 Mr Perkowski
completed a piston ring joint venture – is held to offer important
advantages over Tier 1 cities like Beijing and Shanghai with their
very high wages, rents and other costs. To judge from the scope and
ambition of its plans, Germany’s largest auto maker, Volkswagen
AG, is similarly impressed by Yizheng, where in July 2010 Shanghai
VW agreed to locate a new assembly plant.
Mr Perkowski supplied some background. Volkswagen already has
a considerable presence in China, where Shanghai VW currently
operates three plants in Shanghai and one in Nanjing. With sales
of just over a million vehicles in 2010, Shanghai VW was in a virtual
tie with Shanghai GM – a unit of General Motors, of the US – to be
known as China’s largest assembler of passenger cars.
Shanghai VW’s plant in Yizheng is under construction, with
completion slated for the second half of 2012. To accommodate VW
and the 30 components suppliers who already have signed up for
sites, the city fathers almost doubled the size of the zone set aside
for the auto industry from 7.72 to 15 square miles. The zone is to be
further expanded beyond manufacturing to include commercial and
residential facilities.
Phase I of the Yizheng project, which may ultimately exceed all
three of VW’s Shanghai locations in capacity, will produce 300,000
vehicles (the Santana NF and Skoda) per year; Phase II will
raise production by another 300,000 cars. In addition, Shanghai
Automotive Industry Corp (SAIC), a Volkswagen partner, may build
120,000 units per year of its first-ever branded car (the Roewe)
near the main site.