Leoni strengthening its market position in Mexico and China

With the new plant in Celaya, in the Mexican state of Guanajuato, and the new facility in Panjin, in the north-eastern Chinese province of Liaoning, the company aims to be able to respond quickly to mounting customer demand and for achieving shorter delivery times. The new plant in Celaya has production space of about 6'300 square metres and will commence production of single-core automotive cables in June of this year. The facility is situated in the vicinity of the customers, most of which have located in southern Mexico and Central America. With this additional expansion and the existing facility in Cuauhtémoc, the Mexican workforce within the Company's Business Group Automotive Cables will increase to 800 people. Leoni is planning to spend about USD 7 million on plant and equipment in Mexico by year-end. The company is setting up a second plant for making standard automotive cables, with production space of about 8'000 square metres, in Panjin, north-east China. The plant will have several extruder lines, multi-wire drawing lines, stranding as well as twisting machines and will manufacture single-core cables for automotive applications with cross sections ranging from 0.13 to 6 mm². “These locations in China and Mexico boast developed industry, a solid infrastructure, skilled labour as well as excellent transport links – this constitutes a stable foundation for establishing and broadening Leoni's market position,” Dr Frank Hiller, Management Board member in charge of the Wire & Cable Solutions Division, emphasised. Production is scheduled to commence at the end of 2015.