Danish brake pipes for Chinese cars 

Private transport in China is no longer synonymous with travelling by bicycles. The car industry is enjoying considerable growth in this enormous country.

The size of the market has attracted Hydro Aluminium, which has decided to establish a plant for the production of aluminium pipes for the Chinese car industry in Suzhou, near Shanghai. The aluminium pipes are used in heat exchangers and as fuel and brake pipes in cars.

Outsourcing to China

COWI is responsible for the basic design of the factory, which will house an administration and production staff of 140. The basic design will be handed over to a Chinese consultant, who will carry out the detailed design. The factory is scheduled to begin production in mid-2005.

"Many leading Western industries are in the process of relocating to China. It is a huge market, and production costs here are significantly lower,” explains COWI project manager Niels Stausholm.

Rapidly growing market

According to the team leader of the Danish part of the project, project engineer Kjeld Schou, then it is a question for Hydro Aluminium of getting into a market considered to be the most rapidly growing market in the world.

"All our clients - i.e. the car factories - get established in China and they cannot import spare parts from Europe. It is obvious that we have to establish a production out there", he adds.

Many years of collaboration

Collaboration between Hydro and COWI is not new. Hydro has four companies in the Danish town of Tønder, and since 1975 COWI has been collaborating with Hydro on the establishment of new factories and their subsequent expansion and modernisation.

COWI project manager Eigil Kruse adds: "It is natural that we want to follow Hydro to China, as we have already experience from similar projects for other Danish industrial companies, which have established production facilities in the same area".

By: Janne Toft Jensen, jaje@cowi.com
Published: 25.05.2004