1. An Overview of Company

    Minebea Electronics & Hi-Tech Components (Shanghai) Ltd. (MEHC), at the lakeside Of Dianshan-hu in Qingpu District, Shanghai, is a large Japan-invested enterprise established by Minebea Group in 1994.

Minebea’s development in Shanghai has been going on smoothly. In the end of June, 2004, the company’s total investment was 630 million US dollars, and its registered capital was 230 million US dollars, with 5,600 employees and two subsidiary factories, the total site area of which is about 500,000 square meters. MEHC manufactures and makes sales of miniature and small-sized (smaller than 22mm) ball bearings, integral shaft ball bearings, direct-current (DC) and alternating-current (AC) fan motors, measuring components, which represents approximately 14% of total Group output. MEHC has become the second largest mass-production base after Thailand in Minebea Group.

    2. The source of rapid development

Susumu Fujisawa, president and general manager of MEHC said that, “the remarkable achievement of MEHC in just ten years is greatly attributed to the effective leadership of municipal and local governments. Especially, leaders of Shanghai Municipal Commission of Foreign Trade and Economic Cooperation and Commission of Foreign Investment always give Minebea great attention and timely policy instruction; when our company encounters difficulty, they always give warm help and support so as to solve our problems.”

    Due to the positive, efficient sense of service of the government, Minebea Group’s business in Shanghai has been flourishing. In 2003, MEHC achieved the sales of 1,930 million RMB, earned foreign exchange 205 million US dollars through export, and was honored with the Bronze Award for Top 100 Exporters for Year 2003, the Award for Top 20 Foreign Invested Enterprises for Export Contribution in Shanghai, etc. This year, MEHC is carrying out its plan for overall expansion of production; the monthly production of mainstay miniature and small-sized ball bearings is estimated to be 4,000 sets, and that of  fan motors is to be 10 million.

Due to the positive, efficient sense of service of the government, Minebea Group is especially attracted to the investment environment in Shanghai. In November, 2002, Minebea Group and Huanxin Group (Minebea invests the 60% of the capital) jointly invested and established Shanghai Shunding Technology Ltd. in Minhang District, which mainly manufactures keyboards. Shunding Technology, which formally began its production in Aug. 2003, is expected to manufacture totally 2.5 million keyboards by the end of this year.

    3. Characteristics of Minebea

MEHC devotes much attention to the training of employees, and actively adopts the particular training system for employees in Group. Ever since its first oversea mass production in the 1970s in  Singapore, when establishing new companies, constructing the factories and taking in production line, Minebea Group has always appointed staff of new companies to the overseas subsidiary mainstay factories for training, so that the operation of new factories could be of the high level from the very beginning. MEHC also adopts the same training system. So far, about 900 Chinese employees have received technology training, business training, including foreign language training in the mainstay factories in Japan, Singapore and Thailand. Besides, MEHC attracts and employs those talents that return to China with overseas education background to enhance the development of company.

    MEHC actively advances the localization of sourcing raw and processed materials, the internalization of producing parts and accessories, in order to increase the added value. Fully supported by Minebea Group, MEHC has provided technological support to Shanghai Wugang Company for eight year. Finally, in Sep. 2002, MEHC began to use the bearing steel by Shanghai Wugang Company, which represents over 50% of the total steel usage at present. It is planned to promote the special type of bearing steel by Shanghai Wugang Company to Minebea Thailand and Minebea Singapore for mass use, when the quality of the steel gets more stabilized. At the same time, the company is gradually bettering its supply chain to realize the overall localization of sourcing raw and processed materials.

    4. Minebea’s Environment Protection and Public Welfare

When devoted into the development of business, MEHC is actively taking part in environment protection. Ever since its establishment, MEHC strictly abides by the “Minebea Group Environment Protection Charter” formulated in 1993, and actively implements the basic environment protection policy that “It’s strictly forbidden to cause any social effects of pollution in the expansion and operation of business in any countries or regions” by the Group. In this regard, MEHC invested first in environment protection, then in workshops, equipment, etc., in accordance with instruction from the headquarter of Minebea Group when it began its business in China.

    So far, MEHC has invested 40 million RMB in facilities and equipment for environment protection. Since it is located near Lake Dianshan-hu, which is the principal source of drinking water for the residents of Shanghai, MEHC not only develops a complete wastewater treatment system to control the living and production wastewater generated by company, but also introduces the most advanced wastewater treatment facilities which enable 24-hour automated monitoring of facility operations with a set of standards more stringent than “The Standard of Wastewater Discharge in the Source Protection Area in Upper Reaches of Huangpu River, Shanghai ”.

    So far, all of the testing numbers of the wastewater discharge of MEHC are far below the company’s set of standards.        Especially, MEHC’s CODcr(mg/L) is only 10, while that of “The Standard of Wastewater Discharge in the Source Protection Area in Upper Reaches of Huangpu River, Shanghai ” is 60, and the company’s standard is 20. That’s one of the examples which demonstrates MEHC’s dedication into environment protection. 

    Besides the tremendous investment into the “hardware”, MEHC put a large amount of human and material resources into the “software”. By the organizations for production security and energy saving, sanitation security, administration of chemical materials, disaster prevention, etc, training of employees, specialized propaganda, daily morning meeting, etc, MEHC passes on the company’s conception of environment protection to every employee, trying to strengthen employees’ sense of environment protection and make them seriously implement all kinds of environment protection measures in their work and daily life.

    As a foreign enterprise, MEHC took the lead in establishing the Shanghai-Minebea Lake Dianshan-hu Environmental Protection Fund, the interest of which is spent on the protection of the environment and water quality in Qingpu District and Xicen Town. What MEHC has done until now in the surrounding area for environment protection includes: the construction of green land in the surrounding area, donating young plants to Shanghai Seedling Base, setting up 4,000 lavatories in Xicen Town Qingpu District, clearing and renovating the main watercourse and 318 national-highway around Dianshan-hu Lake.

MEHC is honored with a series of awards due to its remarkable contribution to environment protection. Especially, in July, 2003, the second factory of the Xicen Plant was selected by the State Environmental Protection Administration as one of the 100 Environmentally Excellent Enterprises. Only 77 enterprises were then short-listed including Minebea, ranked as No. 4, the only 100% foreign-owned firm from Shanghai.

    Besides its dedication into environment protection, MEHC actively devotes itself into public welfare activities. In May, 2004, as the 10^th anniversary of the company, MEHC donated 2 fire engines to support the construction of fire control in Jinze Town.   

    5. The Objective of Company

    Susumu Fujisawa, president and general manager of MEHC said that, “The achievements of MEHC in the last decade, though remarkable, are of the past. To be invincible in the increasingly intensive competition, MEHC will exert more efforts to manufacture even better productions in a more fast way, with more amount and lower cost, trying to be ‘the most powerful manufacturer of multiple precision components’ in a near future.”