BYD acquires a Japanese mold factory

　　According to Beijing Times, BYD confirmed yesterday that it has purchased a plant from Ogihara Corp, a major Japanese metal die manufacture.The total cost and other details will be announced after April 5.

　　The plant BYD purchased purchased this time is one of the Ogihara Corp’s four domestic die production bases, named ‘Tatebayashi Plant’, which makes dies for hoods and other auto body parts.

　　According to mutual agreement, BYD has started taking over the Ogihara factory, including its land, facilities and about 80 employees from yesterday on.

　　Tatebayashi Plant is located, about 70 km (43 miles) north of Tokyo. It supplies molds to Japanese and foreign automakers, including Toyota, Honda, GM and so on. Ogihara Corp, one of world’s biggest independent auto mold manufacturers, headquarters in Gunma Prefecture. Besides Japan, Ogihara also has factories oversea in America, England, Thailand, Mexico and China.

　　As far as reporter has learned, temporarily, BYD will slightly expand the production scale of Tatebayashi Plant. But later on it will move the production Line to Beijing. Insiders from BYD said, employees from Beijing auto mold factory will be dispatched to Tatebayashi Plant to learn from them.

　　BYD is a quite special company in automotive industry.Previously, specialization is the direction of automotive industry as all companies peel off and spare parts manufacturers. However, BYD has adopted a totally different strategy to purchase spare parts manufactures constantly.Wang Chuanfu, President of BYD, said ‘Control suppliers helps BYD to reduce total cost’.

　　(Translator: yalong/ Jessie)

　　See original Chinese report Please click: http://auto.sohu.com/20100402/n271274668.shtml