Fuyao to win GM contracts

Fuyao Glass Industry Group, China's largest automotive glass maker, is poised to win more contracts with General Motors.

Bo Andersson, GM's top global purchasing executive, said Fuyao "may become one of GM's largest glass suppliers. Based on the contracts, they will be a very big supplier. They are fast-growing."

The company is working on new contracts with GM, confirms Chen Yuedan, board secretary at Fuyao. She declined to provide more information.

In Europe, Fuyao says it has signed a contract to supply front windshields to Bentley Motors this year. The contract follows another piece of Volkswagen group business, a contract to supply the same pieces to the next-generation Audi A6 sedan.

In November, Fuyao made its first overseas' purchase by buying SCHE35 Verwaltungsgesellschaft mbH from Zehner Industriebeteiligungs-GmbH for 1.03 million euros (10.92 million yuan).

Based in Heilbronn, Germany, the company was renamed Fuyao Europe GmbH. Its European customers include Volkswagen, Audi, Opel, Ford, Volvo, Bentley and Land Rover, says a company report.

The company's other global customers include Chrysler, PSA/Peugeot-Citroen, Toyota, Honda, Nissan and Hyundai.

Fuyao owns 50 percent of the domestic automotive glass market. It has automotive glass plants in five major automotive industrial cities, Changchun, Chongqing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Beijing.

The company just established an automobile glass joint venture with Meadland Ltd. in Jingmen, Hubei province, to supply local automakers.

Total sales of the first six months of 2007 were 2.23 billion yuan ($301.6 million), up 30.7 percent compared with the same period last year. Exports in the first half year rose to 680 million yuan ($92.3 million).