Chief Executive Director Jack Dong explains to Pete Starkey how Shengyi Technology, the world’s second largest laminate manufacturer, plans to continue to develop its European market and to comprehensively meet the diverse requirements of the automotive, industrial controls and medical sectors. He also comments on how the Chinese government recognises the Industry 4.0 revolution in automation, data exchange and manufacturing technologies, and is steering its industrial development strategy in a similar direction.
Starkey: Jack, could I ask you to begin by giving us an introduction to Shengyi?
Dong: Shengyi is a Chinese company that was founded almost 30 years ago. In that time, Shengyi developed quickly due to the electronics industry’s rapid growth in China and due to the Chinese government pushing out the older industry. This was a great opportunity when Shengyi was just beginning as a small company; now we have become number two in the world for laminates.
Of course, we are still young, and we still have a good opportunity for the future. Our company is located in mainland China in Dongguan, very close to Hong Kong, and over time we have developed some new locations around the world. In China we have plants in Dongguan, Suzhou and Xi’an supporting our capacity of 5.2 million sheets monthly, which is the biggest in the world. Of course, we still have to continue to expand our capacity as China includes the global market and the electronic industry continues to grow.
Talking about the future, we still need more capacity and more facilities in different locations and countries that can meet the requirements of our customers. We hope to become an international company. We will follow the PCB industry when we build our new sites.
Starkey: What are your views on the market for laminates inside China and outside of China?
Dong: Our main customers and main market are still in China, but the global and overseas market is very important to us. The European and the American markets have many high technology end users in old and new production. There’s new, original technology that is developed in Europe and America and we are paying more attention to these markets.
The European market still has more than 215 PCB shops. In the past 30 years China’s total cost was lower than every other country, but now the total cost has increased with labor costs, development costs, and even land costs increasing. So maybe in the future the market here in Europe will be another important market for us, as we have many good customers here in Germany, France, and Italy. This is why we put the Shengyi Europe facility in France.