China: NSK Continues Opening New Operations in China(Pic)

Regional Area of NSK's China Operations NSK Ltd. (Japan) is expanding its commitment to open more operations in China, where it has had a presence since the early 1960's. As one of the first foreign bearing companies to establish manufacturing operations in China, NSK opened its Kunsham factory in 1995 and the Guizhou factory in 1997. Now in 2004, NSK said it is again escalating its commitment to manufacturing and distributing in China. Existing ventures will be expanded and new operations will be added. The production facilities in Kunshan, near Shanghai, are being expanded from two buildings to three. The additional manufacturing floorspace will be dedicated solely to producing automotive size bearings, targeting the fast-growing Chinese auto manufacturing industry. Building on its success there, Kunshan is also being investigated as a potential production site for NSK's precision machinery and tooling businesses. NSK's first strictly-automotive parts production facility, NSK Steering Systems Dongguan (Guangdong) has recently come online. The plant supplies steering columns and joints to its Japanese auto manufacturer customers operating plants in China. Zhangjiagang NSK, a factory near Shanghai which produces prefinished bearing components for the company's other plants, recently passed quality audits and began delivering components to NSK bearing factories around the world. Timken-NSK Bearings Suzhou Ltd., a joint venture with The Timken Company, has also recently begun production of automotive-size tapered roller bearings. Timken-NSK Suzhou is NSK's first tapered roller bearing manufacturing facility to be located outside Japan, a step driven by NSK's decision to target Japanese automakers now operating in China and Asia, to meet their needs for transmission bearings and wheel bearings. NSK said the moves and others yet to come in 2004 will, "reinforce our overall Chinese business organization, from development, production, through to sales, to secure our presence in the world's largest market."