Success for Dürr in China

10/16/2001

The Paint Systems business unit of the Dürr Technology Group has received several large contracts for new paintshops in China with a total value of approximately 113 million euros. The contracts have been placed for the SVW Volkswagen factory at Shanghai, for the VW-FAW Joint Venture in Changchun and by Yantai Foreign Trade Corporation, Yantai, a Chinese manufacturer.

Demand from both the automobile and other industries is lively and the Dürr business units Automotion, Services and Measuring Systems have also received a number of orders for China during the current business year. Dürr expects the proportion of total order intake from Chinese customers to reach 15 per cent of total incoming orders over the full year. Thus Dürr is further extending its leading position as a supplier of manufacturing systems and manufacturing support services for the automobile industry in the largest growth market in Asia. China, with a population of approximately 1.3 billion, a small number of vehicles and a developing economy, is a country offering excellent growth perspectives not only in the automobile industry.

This first contract for the innovative RoDip dip ED painting method at SVW's Shanghai factory represents a Dürr success story and signals new opportunities throughout Asia. RoDip offers improved quality while requiring less space and less maintenance. The new paint shops are also characterised by optimisation of energy resources, selective automisation and improvements to ergonomic aspects of work stations. In addition the plants are designed for future use with environmentally-friendly, water-borne paints. In China SVW and FAW manu-facture and assemble Passat, Santana, Jetta and Audi A6 and will soon add the Bora and Polo models. Market leader VW is making investments in its Chinese factories in order to achieve global quality and efficiency levels and environmental standards on a par with those in Europe. Chinese manufacturer, Yantai produces its own-design vehicles for the local market.

Dürr has been directly represented in the Chinese market since 1991 by its own subsidiary companies offering sales, engineering, manufacturing and support services. Customers with activities in China include the most important local and foreign manufacturers, e.g. GM, VW, FAW, PSA, Beijing Light Automotive Company, Jinbei Passenger Cars and South East Motor. In addition Dürr Measuring Systems (Schenck Balancing and Diagnostic Systems and Measuring and Process Systems) supply solutions to the machine, electro and aerospace industries as well as branches in the raw materials fields such as mining and steel manufacture.

The Dürr Technology Group is one of the world's leading suppliers of manufacturing systems and manufacturing support services for the automobile industry and its suppliers. Group sales for the year 2000 reached Euro 2,042 million. In the first six months of fiscal year 2001 sales increased by 30% to Euro 888 million and EBITDA by 58% to Euro 54.1 million. In the second six months of the fiscal year business has so far been brisk, several large contracts were placed and Letters of Intent received.

For the whole of the current year Dürr expects to achieve double-digit growth rates in both sales and earnings, with a proportionally greater increase in the case of the latter.

Dürr will report on business in the first nine months of the fiscal year on 24 October 2001