The Kobe Steel Group, Matsushita Industrial Equipment Co. Ltd and China’s Tangshan Kaiyuan Electric Co. Ltd. are to establish a joint venture in China to manufacture and market welding materials. To be named Kobe Welding of Tangshan Co. Ltd, the new company will
be established in November in Tangshan, Hebei Province, east of Beijing. The joint venture will be 52% owned by the Kobe Steel Group. Kobe Steel Ltd will have a 48% equity share and affiliate Shinsho Corporation 4%. Matsushita will hold 25% and Tangshan Kaiyuan Electric will hold 23%. The joint venture will be capitalised at 1.45 billion yen (about 100
million RMB). Kobe Welding is expected to employ about 180 people by 2004. The chairman will be Liu BaoCheng, who is currently chairman of Tangshan Kaiyuan Electric. The president will come from Kobe Steel. A plant will be built in the China Tangshan New & Hi-tech Development Zone in Tangshan. Within this Development Zone, Japanese welding-
related companies have begun to set up their operations. The plant will be situated on property covering 17,745 square metres. Kobe Welding will produce two types of welding materials, called consumables in the industry – CO2 solid welding wire and flux cored welding wire. It is anticipated that by 2004, Kobe Welding will have production capacities of 1250 metric tons per month for solid welding wire and 250 metric tons per month for flux cored wire.
China’s welding consumable market is forecast to grow 10% per year. In particular, demand for solid welding wire and flux cored welding wire is anticipated to increase sharply due to high demand from the construction and manufacturing industries. Solid welding wire and
flux cored welding wire are commonly used in structural fabrication, bridges, automobiles, industrial machinery and shipbuilding.