The Magneti Marelli Powertrain (Shanghai) Co. Ltd produces automobile engines and related auto components.

The establishment of the key automobile component plant is a sign of the Italian auto producer's determined strategy for the China market, according to industry insiders here.

The Huadong Teksid Automotive Foundry Co. Ltd, set up in Zhanjiang City, in east China's Jiangsu Province, is an 80-million-US-dollar joint venture between Fiat and two Chinese partners. It is the largest auto engine cylinder casting plant in China.

The new company, with US$25 million of investment, covers 15,000 square meters of floor space in a bonded zone in the Pudong District of Shanghai.

Its designed annual production capacity in the first phase is 150,000 auto throttles. This is expected to be expanded to 900,000 by 2003.

Fiat's Shanghai plant will also provide electric engine management systems for China's major automobile producers.

Hu Hongxing, vice manager of Magneti Marelli, said that the establishment of the plant resulted from Fiat's analysis of China's growing market demand for electric fuel jet management systems for both petroleum and diesel engines.

Fiat's dominance of the related technology will help China's automobile producers improve the efficiency of fuel consumption and reduce auto emission pollution, the manager said.

(China Daily 06/08/2001)