In a few days, Zhejiang Hailiang Co., Ltd. will officially kick off its construction on the Copper Tube Production Base Project in Houston, USA, reflecting that Hailiang is another step closer to having its own factory in the United States. It also signifies its “last mile” exploration of the American market, an important step in its global industrial base layout.
It is reported that the project will be constructed in Hailiang Sealy Industrial Park that covers an area of 1,200 mu, with a total investment of 150 million US dollars. It is expected to build 3 continuous casting and rolling copper tube production lines with a designed production capacity of 100,000 tons for producing industrial pipes and mosquito-repellent pipes for air conditioning and refrigeration, as well as small-caliber water pipes for the construction industry.
The Americas is an important market for copper pipe consumption, and North America has always been the largest overseas sales market of Zhejiang Hailiang. As early as 2010, Hailiang has established a branch in US to sell copper tubes and other products manufactured by Hailiang. With the increasing demand for product delivery time and after-sales service, consumers’ calling for the localization of Hailiang products is soaring. In 2017, Hailiang sent its employees to US to investigate the site for building its production base, and finally chose the city of Sealy in Houston, Texas.
Entering into the US market is the latest move of Hailiang’s globalization layout. In fact, the company’s globalization has never stopped since 2007. In 2007, after becoming the largest copper tube exporter in China, the company started to construct its manufacturing base in Tỉnh Tiền Giang, Vietnam. When the United States implemented anti-dumping policy on China’s copper tube products in 2009, the Vietnam base was put into operation. Since then, the company’s export orders to the US have all been transferred to the Vietnam factory.
The practice of the Vietnamese factory has accumulated experience for Hailiang’s globalization layout. In December 2016, Hailiang Co., Ltd. acquired three Asian factories belonging to the Finnish-based Luvata Group with 880 million yuan. Therefore, the company has established its production base in Thailand targeting for middle and high-end customers, positively supplementing the Vietnamese factory.
On March 31 this year, Zhejiang Hailiang once again announced that its transaction with KME Group was officially completed—Zhejiang Hailiang acquired KME’s three copper alloy rod manufacturers in Germany, France and Italy and two copper tubes manufacturers in Germany and Spain with 119 million euros. The completion of the M&A transaction allowed Hailiang to stand firm in the European market that was once impossible to explore.
From Asia to Europe to the Americas, Hailiang has completed its global layout in copper processing. “At this point, anti-dumping, trade barriers and other unfavorable factors will hardly affect the company,” Qian Ziqiang, secretary of the board of Zhejiang Hailiang said.