Since COVID, we have all despaired as one business after another was shuttered, permanently. But there are bright spots, as illustrated by the enormous injection of foreign investment into Nanjing just announced. It’s the vote of confidence in Nanjing many have been waiting for.
Nanjing authorities wasted no time in patting themselves on the back on Monday, 16 May, as they delighted in seven foreign-funded projects successfully “joining hands” with Nanjing in their focus on manufacturing and high-tech industries. The total investment amount was quoted as being US $1.06 billion.
But such a huge number needs be taken with a pinch of salt. In the competitive market that is Chinese cities seeking to secure the most Foreign Direct Investment, it is common for figures to become artificially inflated by including projects which are essentially only at the stage of “Memorandum of Understanding”. In other words, pipe dreams.
Further muddying the waters was the wording that some of the projects may be more Jiangsu based, as opposed to here in Nanjing. Nevertheless, severalseven stand out for their firm commitments, and they represent a 310 million US Dollar injection into the Nanjing economy.
Korea-based Kolan is promising US$150 million into its R&D and manufacturing of automobile safety parts in Nanjing. The money was mentioned as also being earmarked for a regional headquarters, but no mention of its specific location was made.
According to Nanjing Daily, the cash will be used for production lines of automobile safety parts such as airbag fabric and the airbags themselves. A rather optimistic annual production capacity for 20 million airbags has been touted, and a yearly sales volume of no less than ¥1.2 billion.
The Kolon Group began in 1954 as a pioneer of the Korean nylon industry. It has since diversified into multiple industries and survived a 2015 lawsuit brought upon it by DuPont concerning alleged theft of trade secrets. Kolan paid US$275 million to DuPont in settlement.
Also in the airbag business, next is Autoliv, haling from Sweden, that plans to invest in the order of US$50 million in Nanjing to increase production at its existing plant. Another annual output value of approximately ¥1 billion is projected.
Autoliv is an omnipresent supplier of parts for the global auto industry, which claims its products have saved 35,000 lives since the 1950s. In Nanjing, their faciltiy is mainly engaged in the production of webbing which uses similar technology to that in seatbelts. The company also presently has a number of job openings in Nanjing advertised on its website.
Finally comes Celanese, the US-based firm that was one of the first enterprises to settle in the Jiangbei New Material Science & Technology Park. The Nanjing plant has become Celanese’s largest production base for liquid crystal polymer in all of China.
“The first phase of investment is US$110 million”, said Xia Qingli, Deputy General Manager of Celanese (China). “After completion of the project, the annual production capacity for liquid crystal polymer will be 9,300 tons.”
With economic uncertainty hanging over China, according to the purveyors of doom and gloom, and keeping in mind the aforementioned caveat, the three projects’ input of north of 300 million US is just what our city needs in order to give Nanjing some much-needed economic momentum.
