Hydro Aluminium will construct its first wholly owned automotive components plant in China to better serve customers in the country's growing automotive market.

Hydro will build the plant in Suzhou, north of Shanghai, to satisfy its automotive customers and further raise its own profile as the leading global supplier of lightweight precision tubing components. Global market leaders in heat and fluid transfer like Behr, Calsonic, Delphi, Denso, Valeo and Visteon are each located in the regions close to the Suzhou Industrial Park site, where the plant will be based.

At the new site, Hydro will produce precision drawn tubing, multi- port extrusions (MPEs) and extruded tubular profiles used in automotive heat transfer applications. The company will also deliver other high-value components from the plant.

Hydro will break ground in the first quarter of 2004 and install the plant's extrusion press by July. Production is scheduled to start in the third quarter of next year. The plant will create about 140 new jobs in Suzhou in first phase (2004).