A groundbreaking ceremony for the first overseas factory of the world's leading 
lithium-ion battery maker Contemporary Amperex Technology Co. Limited (CATL) 
<300750.SZ> took place on October 18 in Thuringia, a state in east-central 
Germany, marking the start of construction of the first lithium-ion battery 
factory in Germany.

"Germany is home to a strong automotive industry and several of CATL's key 
customers," said Matthias Zentgraf, Co-president Europe CATL. "We believe that 
the combination of Germany's industrial tradition and CATL's tradition of 
innovative battery technology will greatly accelerate the electrification of 
the automotive industry in Europe." CATL has developed win-win partnerships 
with a slew of European companies in automobile industry including BMW, 
Volkswagen, Daimler, Volvo, and Bosch.

This intelligent factory is designed and developed to root deeply in Europe and 
work closely with customers to provide clean and reliable power for electro 
mobility. After purchasing the former property from Solarworld, CATL starts a 
new stage of capacity expansion on 23 ha green field to achieve 14GWh 
production capacity of battery by 2022. Production lines for both battery cells 
and modules will be finalized in this phase of expansion. To enable the highly 
efficient production, a comprehensive support team will be developed in 
Thuringia, including logistics, quality management, operations maintenance and 
local purchasing and development departments. Experts from CATL's headquarters 
in the fields of technology, process and management will also come and support 
in Thuringia for a smooth start-up phase. Since June this year, CATL has been 
on site with the first employees, and up to 2,000 jobs will be created by 
2024/2025.

Local supply chain is another key element of successful production 
localization. The company will also identify and qualify local suppliers of 
materials, components, systems and services. This will indirectly create 
additional jobs and prospects in the region.

"Thuringia is centrally located, enabling us to respond to customer requests in 
a timely fashion. And the availability of renewable energy, which already 
reaches almost 40% in the public network of Thuringia, is another important 
decision criterion." Matthias Zentgraf continues, "And finally, thanks to the 
support from the Thuringian Ministry of Economic Affairs and the LEG Thuringia, 
we believe Thuringia's manufacturing and R&D environment will contribute to 
CATL's development."

Except for bringing cutting-edge lithium-ion battery technologies from China to 
Germany, CATL will also intensify its cooperation with local R&D institutes and 
universities, such as MEET, to extend the strong position in the industry. 

With CATL's choice of the Arnstadt site, the state-of-the-art lithium-ion 
batteries for electro mobility will be manufactured in the region. This impetus 
will also help to successfully position Thuringia as a benchmark in the 
mobility shift with all its facets.

SOURCE  CATL