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By Steve Toloken
STAFF REPORTER / ASIA BUREAU CHIEF
Published: November 3, 2014 11:33 am ET
Updated: November 3, 2014 11:37 am ET
Image By: Steve Toloken
Wu Zhaoqiang, general manager of Jason Tooling Ltd., at the Fakuma trade fair in Germany.
FRIEDRICHSHAFEN, GERMANY — Seeing opportunities from car part suppliers in Europe and North America that are consolidating their supply base, Chinese injection mold maker Jason Tooling (China) Ltd. is building a 538,195-square-foot factory that will more than double its capacity. The Shenzhen, Guangdong province-based company plans to invest up to $40 million in the new plant, in Dongguan, Guangdong province, and open it in December, said General Manager Wu Zhaoqiang.
He spoke Oct. 16 at the Fakuma trade show in Friedrichshafen, where Jason Tooling was exhibiting.
About half of the company’s molds are exported to Europe, with another 30 percent to North America and 20 percent within Asia. More than 90 percent of its customers are in the automotive industry.
While the Chinese manufacturing environment is suffering from a one-two punch of rising domestic costs and softness in key export markets like Europe, Wu said he favors expansion as a strategy to manage that.
It can give the company more bargaining power with its suppliers and make it easier to focus on improving technical capabilities, he said.
That includes capabilities to make multi-shot molds, tandem molds and tools for use with injection molding foaming technologies like Mucell, he said.
“This technology is not so unusual in America or Europe,” he said. “In China, it is not so common.”
The company exported about $25 million in molds in 2013 and $7 million in plastic molded parts, and is expecting at least a 30 percent increase in sales next year, said Emma Peng, vice president of marketing.
“We are confident next year — a lot of customers have already booked our new capacity,” Wu said.
The new factory will have about 250 employees, in addition to the 300 it employs at its 323,000-square-feet facility in Shenzhen, the company said. It will keep both facilities open, Wu said.
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