ArvinMeritor buys 150 tons of auto steel from Ma Steel

Shanghai, May 28 (Gasgoo.com) The Brazil unit of U.S. auto-parts giant ArvinMeritor has recently signed a contract with China's Ma'anshan Iron & Steel Group (Ma Steel) for sourcing 150 tons of steel for making auto wheels. And Ma Steel may join hands with a Chinese auto-parts maker in developing steel wheels for global markets.

Auto wheel steel is the crucial auto-part material for car-making and has great market demands. Since the launch of its new plant, Ma Steel has been developing and producing steel for automobile wheels as one of the company's priority projects. The high-quality steel made by Ma Steel meets the national standards in precision, fatigue-resistance and soldering properties. As its new steel was launched in April this year, Ma Steel received an order from Zhejiang Jingu Automobile Components Manufacturing Co., Ltd., China's leading maker of steel wheels, for 600 tons of auto wheel steel. And now Zhejiang Jingu has ordered another 5,000 tons of this new steel.

As a tier-1 auto-parts supplier for heavy-duty and commercial trucks, passenger cars and light trucks, ArvinMeritor is an industry leader with a 60-year history of providing innovative, quality Fumagalli steel wheels in Brazil. This month ArvinMeritor's Light Vehicle Systems (LVS) business group has opened a new Global Centre of Excellence in Limeira, Sao Paulo, Brazil. The Brazil unit of ArvinMeritor followed in the footsteps of Zhejiang Jingu and ordered 150 tons of Ma Steel’s new steel for making auto wheels.

The order from ArvinMeritor for the new steel has shown Ma Steel a new strategic insight into a huge potential market. The steel company also intends to cooperate with the automaker Zhejiang Jingu in developing new series of steel wheels for global markets, in addition to supply steel directly to auto-partmakers at home and abroad. Ma Steel is one of China's largest iron & steel enterprises and has the capabilities and technologies of exploring the auto-parts market.

ArvinMeritor opened a new 300,000-square-foot facility in Wuxi, China, in August 2006 to make trailer axles and suspensions for key trailer manufacturers in China, as well as for export to North America and Europe. The plant ramped up to full production in early 2007. ArvinMeritor unveiled its second-generation inverted portal axle (IPA2G) at the 2008 Beijing Auto Show last month for the Asian transit and bus markets.