World car roof leader Inalfa opens new headquarters in Netherlands

Inalfa Roof Systems, one of the world's biggest providers of vehicle roof systems and subsidiary of the Chinese Beijing Automotive Industry Group (BAIC), opened on Thursday a new headquarters building in the southern Dutch city of Venray.

The new headquarters, named "Transparent Building" for its features such as being pellucid, illuminating, clear, open and accessible", is not only a powerful architectural work inspired on the streamlined design of cars, but also a milestone in fruitful cooperation between the two countries.

It will be the new base and R&D center of the 70-year-old Inalfa's global footprint with facilities in Slovakia, the United States, Mexico, Brazil, China, South Korea, Japan and Poland.

"Five years ago, we were here to draw our blueprints for the future of Inalfa and BHAP (Beijing Hainachuan Automotive Parts, a subsidiary of BAIC Group which bought Inalfa in 2011). Today I feel very proud of what we have achieved," said Xu Heyi, chariman of the BAIC Group, which ranked the 207th in the world Fortune 500 in 2015.

"Faced with a weak European economy, Inalfa has striven to achieve leapfrog development with a double-digit annual growth," said Li Fei, counselor of economic and commercial affairs of the Chinese Embassy in the Netherlands.

"Both China and the Netherlands are very concerned about whether such large-scale cross-border acquisition would yield a desired result. Today, this 'Transparent Building' is a best scorecard," said Li.

"Through great efforts from Inalfa and many other companies, the economic and trade cooperation between China and The Netherlands has become the epitome and model of China-EU economic and trade cooperation," the counselor added.

In 2015, bilateral trade reached 68.27 billion U.S. dollars, making The Netherlands China's third largest trading partner in the EU. Besides, it is also the third largest EU investor in China.

Inalfa, an abbreviation of IN (Industrie) AL (Aluminium) FA (Fabrikaten), was founded in 1946 as a metal company.

It started to produce car roof systems in 1974, with Jaguar and Rover as its first customers. Now it provides roof systems to such manufacturers as BMW, Daimler, Ford, General Motors, Volkswagen, Volvo, Renault, Nissan, Hyundai, Kia and Chinese carmakers Chery and Geely.

Inalfa aims to be become the top seller, employer, and innovation leader in the roof system market, said the company's Chief Operating Officer Jan Tulkens at the opening ceremony. Endi