Italy's Univer to establish China HQ with 300-mln-yuan investment

Italian industrial automation company Univer Group on Tuesday signed a 300-million-yuan (about 42 million U.S. dollars) investment agreement with Taicang City, east China's Jiangsu Province, to establish its China headquarters.

The project will involve R&D as well as the production of pneumatic components and clamping cylinders. It is expected to generate an annual output value exceeding 500 million yuan.

Liu Long, general manager of Univer China, said that Taicang boasts a large agglomeration of foreign investment and has comprehensive supply chains. "We will exchange and cooperate with local enterprises to promote the development of the industrial automation industry," he noted.

Taicang neighbors Shanghai and is a key port hub along the Yangtze River. It is home to over 1,600 foreign-invested enterprises, which account for 50 percent of the city's industrial output and 60 percent of its trade volume.

Founded in 1971 and headquartered in Milan, Univer is one of Italy's key producers of industrial automation equipment. Its pneumatic products are used in the automobile, engineering machinery, new energy and medical device industries, among others.