OREANDA-NEWS. Following the establishment of the headquarters for the China market in Shanghai, PRC in July, Furukawa Electric Group company Furukawa Automotive Systems Inc. established a new company on February 13, 2014 in Bangkok, Thailand. The company started a business in July to oversee the design, sales, and procurement functions with the goal of enhancing customer support capabilities as well as expanding the trading area in the Southeast Asia market.

Annual automobile production in the Southeast Asia market is currently at about four million vehicles, and it expected to increase to about six million vehicles in 2020. Japanese automotive manufacturers—who are major customers of Furukawa Electric —have more than 80% share in the market. As we are planning to expand the trading area of our automotive parts business globally, this is positioned as the most important market.

In order to respond to the recent acceleration of customer vehicle designs and localization of purchasing in the South Asia market, the new company established design and sales functions in Thailand where is the center of the market, and .it will provide our customers with rapid and even higher quality service.

In addition, we also established a procurement control function and we will strengthen cost competitiveness by building an optimal parts sourcing network in the Southeast Asia region as well as promote local procurement of materials combined with sales and design.