ArvinMeritor to open its 1st Asian wheel-making plant in China

Shanghai. August 15 (Gasgoo.com) -- While ArvinMeritor Inc. is closing down its plant in America for cost-cutting and selling its repair unit in Europe, the auto component and systems manufacturer is ready to open a steel wheel-manufacturing plant in China.

The new plant will be located in Anhui province in East China, in the vicinity of a local auotmaker Jianghuai Automobile Co. The plant, whichi is ArvinMeritor's first wheel-making facilities, is going to make passenger vehicles wheels at the beginning.

ArvinMeritor, a Fortune-500-listed company, currently has wheel-making plants only in Brazil and Mexico. Its soon-to-open Asia-Pacific headquarter is located in Shanghai, which is not far from the new plant.

Though ArvinMeritor's wouldn't reveal any details about the upcoming plant, the company’s  new products are mostly like to supply Jianghua Automobile, with which Arvin Meritor already has cooperation agreement.
 
"By 2012 and 2013, our expectation is to achieve one third sales in North America, one third in Europe and one third in Asia-Pacific. So we have a huge challenge in front of us in terms of sales growth here in Asia-Pacific," said Aziz Aghili , ArvinMeritor's vice president of global procurement and department of Asia-Pacific light vehicle systems.

ArvinMeritor has a smaller operation in Changchun, where it set up a cooperative office with FAW; it also has opened a new sunroofs plant in Shanghai, which will start operation by October.  

Last month, ArvinMeritor sealed a deal with China’s largest home-grown automaker Chery Automobile to set up a chassis systems joint venture in Anhui province.