Chinese machinery manufacturer Haitian International (Hong Kong; www.haitian.com) is planning to build two new production plants for injection moulding machinery at Ningbo in China’s Zhejiang Province. In announcing the plans at a press conference ahead of K 2013 (www.k-online.de), the company did not disclose the cost of the facilities, which it says focus on lean production. They are believed to be alternatives for initial plans to build a new production site in northern China, laid to rest in October 2011.

One of the plants will produce fully electric machinery on a floor space of 120,000 m³ in the eastern part of Chunxiao near the island of Meishan. At Anshan near Ningbo, a second facility will have floor space of 150,000 m³.

In addition to investing in new capacity, the Chinese machinery producer plans to increase spending on research and development. The focus will be on processing composites and extending the product range to include less expensive models. From 2014, the “Jupiter II” range will be extended to three additional models with a clamping force below the company’s current smallest model, which has a clamping force of 12,000 kN.

With the new investment, Haitian continues its expansion drive. In the first half of 2013, the company opened a new US technical centre in Cleveland, Ohio, built a new headquarters for its Russian subsidiary in Moscow and established a marketing company in South Africa. A new administrative headquarters for the group at Ningbo is due to be completed in October.