Jane Denny
URETHANES TECHNOLOGY INTERNATIONAL
Published: January 16, 2014 11:20 am ET
Updated: January 16, 2014 11:26 am ET
WUHAN, CHINA -- Automotive components maker Faurecia SA opened a 60,000-square-meter automotive seating manufacturing complex in central China's Wuhan city in November.
The group's two existing seating plants in the city - Faurecia GSK (Wuhan) Automotive Seating, a 51 percent-owned joint venture with Taiwan's largest automotive parts manufacturer GSK, and Faurecia (Wuhan) Automotive Components Systems -- a wholly-owned affiliate company -- have moved into the park and will supply seat frames and complete seats to Dongfeng Peugeot Citroen Automobile and Nissan. Both plants have a capacity close to 500,000 parts per year.
The company predicts that 12 percent of its sales will be to Chinese brands in 2016. Faurecia China reported sales of $2 billion in 2012 and said it plans to double that figure by 2016, which would be 15 percent of the group's total sales within the country.
Production processes and technologies including cutting, foaming and covering will be introduced to the park and an automotive seating design and development center is also planned. Faurecia expects to shape the new industrial complex into a benchmark site for its seating business in China.
Faurecia currently has 39 plants and four research centers, and employs 10,000 people in China. | 
