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JATCO Holds Opening Ceremony for Production Subsidiary in China and Commence Production of Jatco CVT8 in China

JATCO, a Nissan Group automatic transmission manufacturer (President: Takashi Hata, Headquarters: Fuji City, Shizuoka Prefecture, Paid-in Capital 29.9353 billion yen), announced that it held an opening ceremony for the new office of the Shanghai branch of its Chinese production subsidiary, JATCO (Guangzhou) Automatic Transmission Ltd. (JGZ) today. JGZ has also commenced the local production of the Jatco CVT8.

The new Shanghai office spans an area of 505 square meters, and is positioned in Shanghai’s Hongqiao district. In addition to functions that have been undertaken by JGZ Shanghai to date, including research, developing new customer bases, uncovering new supplier sources, and ensuring supplier quality. The new office is also equipped with a showroom that welcomes visitors. There are currently sixteen employees at the branch, and there are plans to increase this number to thirty in the near future.

The opening ceremony was attended by Deputy Secretary General Yao Jie from the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers (CAAM), China Automotive Technology & Research Center (CATARC), as well as related parties from Chinese universities, Nissan (China) Investment Co., Ltd., and other JATCO executives. 

On the opening of the new office, JATCO Executive Vice President Hitoshi Nagakura commented, “JATCO aims to achieve one trillion yen sales by fiscal 2018. To that end, the Chinese market is an extremely important one to JATCO. This new office will increase significance in our push to respond to customer demands in China and fuel consumption regulations, which are likely to become even more stringent going forward. It will also play an increasingly important role in our aim to provide high-quality, low fuel-consumption CVT. Moreover, the new office serves as a new point of contact between JATCO and external parties, and we look forward to seeing it become a space where exchanges take place in various aspects.”

The automobile market is enjoying continued growth in China, and the proportion of CVT in the market is also increasing year to year. In order to respond to the expanding demand for CVT, JATCO Guangzhou started production of CVT for medium-sized vehicles in 2009. In 2011, it launched the production of Jatco CVT7, which is a CVT with auxiliary gearbox for compact vehicles. Most recently, it also began to produce Jatco CVT8 this month, the latest CVT model that has achieved approximately 10% improvement in fuel efficiency, as compared to previous models. Installation of this in Dongfeng-Nissan’s vehicle, “Teana,” has already commenced. On April 15, accumulated production of JATCO CVTs in China reached 1 million units.  The company currently has a production capacity of approximately 0.9 million units per year there. It also possesses local application and development functions.

JATCO was established in 1999 (founded in 1943). Production volume for 2011 was 4.93 million units. With annual sales of 602.5 billion yen, the company is one of the very few companies dedicated to the development and production of transmissions, taking up 49% of the global CVT market share in 2012. JATCO is targeting to achieve one trillion yen sales by fiscal year 2018. Toward this objective, the company has been expanding production in Mexico, China, and Thailand, the latter of which is scheduled to open in 2013. In addition, its second plant in Mexico is scheduled to commence operations in 2014.