Ricardo has completed half of a planned a two-phase development of its Shanghai-based operations this year, underscoring the company’s commitment to the fast expanding Chinese automotive market.
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The first phase – completed with the move this week to a new technical centre – includes a tripling of the existing working area, with space for 100 employees.
About 90% of the staff have technical and engineering roles on projects for Chinese and overseas clients.
The new technical centre is centrally located, close to the futuristic and highly prestigious Hi-Tech Park development at Caohejing – a convenient location for many customers and advanced technology component and system suppliers.
The second phase of development – which should be completed by the end of the year – is a satellite test-based operation within the expanding Anting ‘Auto City’ area to the west of Shanghai, where automotive operations include the technical headquarters of Shanghai Automotive Industry Corporation (SAIC) and the SAIC-VW assembly plant.
“With the two phases of expansion taking place in 2008, Ricardo China is being transformed into a significant regional product engineering and development presence, capable of taking on the toughest product development challenges and delivering high quality services for its Chinese customers”, said Lee Sykes, executive VP of Ricardo China.
“These developments take Ricardo beyond the level of an overseas engineering provider, giving the company crucial critical mass as a local supplier of engineering services in the Chinese market, with the back-up of global resources. We will be far better placed to achieve our objectives for locally based engineering recruitment and further development of our Chinese business.”
Ricardo CEO Dave Shemmans added: “The emerging automotive markets of China, Russia and India are major targets for the future growth of Ricardo as a whole, and our further investment in China underscores our commitment to providing an excellent standard of service, responsiveness, quality and technology, irrespective of the location of our international customers.”
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