Photo Caption: MOBIS President Kyu-Hwan Han(left) of C&;A shake hands after a greeting on a J/V autoparts manufacturing firm in Alabama, U.S.A.

In-Panel J/V Firm Planned in the U.S.

MOBIS recently signed a contract with world's top specialist in automotive design parts, Collins and Aikman (C&A), to set up a joint-venture company in Alabama, U.S.A. The J/V firm, to be established in an equity ratio of 75 to 25 by C&A and MOBIS, will start production of in-panels, the core part of driver's seat modules, from early 2005.

The two companies agreed to organize a joint project team for the development of a mass production system, complete the establishment of the J/V firm within this year and invest about US$7.3 million to ready the production facility by 2004.

The projected firm will supply in-panels to MOBIS' Alabama module plant, where driver's seat modules are to be finally assembled for supply to NF and CM (follow-on models of Sonata and Santa Fe). The two companies plan to achieve annual sales of US$25 million, with an annual 300,000-unit scale of mass production. For supply of the highest-quality in-panels, they also plan to apply C&A's recently developed new high-tech material.

Separately from the J/V agreement, MOBIS also signed a contract with C and A enabling it to utilize and A's new patents in addition, while further expanding technology cooperation that was concluded between the two companies in 2001. MOBIS' J/V partner has the world's top-class driver's seat module technology and is supplying its driver's seat modules to the global big 3 carmakers GM, Ford and Daimler Chrysler.