moving on Relocations and expansions across Europe

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Relocations and expansions across Europe

China’s Zijin To Invest Over €730m In Serbia

Zijin Bor Copper, the Serbian unit of China’s Zijin Mining Group, has announced its plans to invest over €730-million in the expansion of its production capacity this year and next, Serbian energy minister Aleksandar Antic has said.

Zijin says it will invest the money into the reconstruction of existing mines, and the opening of new ones, increasing the capacity of its copper smelter and strengthening the its environmental protections.

Despite the coronavirus outbreak, production of copper at the mining and smelting complex is going ahead without delay, Antic said during a meeting with the general manager of Zijin Bor Copper, Jian Ximing, in Belgrade.

In January, Zijin Bor Copper said it targets a profit of €6.8-million this year. The company plans to process 437,000 tonnes of copper concentrate and produce 122,000 tonnes of anodes, 90,000 tonnes of cathodes,370,000 tonnes of sulphuric acid, 1,833 kg of gold and 11.9 tonnes of silver in 2020.

The Chinese group injected €279-million in the capital of Serbian copper mining and smelting company RTB Bor in December 2018, acquiring majority ownership, and renamed it to Zijin Bor Copper. visit: http://www.zijinmining.com/

renault ends chinese Joint venture to focus on electric

French car maker Renault has announced that it is pulling out of its lossmaking joint venture with Dongfeng Motor Corp due to lacklustre sales, reversing a much-heralded strategy put into place by former CEO Carlos Ghosn.

The automotive firm said that it would stop selling petrol cars in China and would sell off its half of the 50-50 joint venture, Dongfeng Renault Automotive Company (Drac). The sale will also transfer full control of its plant in Wuhan to Dongfeng, meaning an end to the sale of Renaultbranded cars.

“We are opening a new chapter in China. We will concentrate on electric vehicles and light commercial vehicles, the two main drivers for future clean mobility and more efficiently leverage our relationship with Nissan,” said François Provost, chairman of Renault’s China business.

The French automotive company has struggled to make its mark in the Chinese market compared with rivals such as General Motors and Volkswagen with sluggish sales even before the outbreak of Covid-19 crashed demand in the country. The pandemic is expected to slow grown in China even further this year.

Renault is one of the hardest hit of the major car firms, closing plants across the world and considering taking out loans of up to €5-billion, which are guaranteed by the French state.

Renault’s sales through the joint venture in China last year amounted to less than 20,000.Drac made only 14 cars in the first quarter of 2020 and sold just 633, down 89% from the same period the previous year.

The decision to quit comes on the heels of a disastrous year for Renault, seeing its profits wiped out and the implementation of €2-billion worth of cost cutting plans.

This year, the company has seen 54% wiped off its share price. Last week, Standard & Poor’s, the credit rating agency, degraded Renault’s bonds to junk, while the company cancelled dividends and said that executives would take pay cuts during the crisis.

The company says that the decision to pull out of the Chinese joint venture was made before the coronavirus hit the markets.

This summer, Luca de Meo, a former Volkswagen and Fiat executive, will take over the reins at Renault - almost one year since the ousting of former CEO Carlos Ghosn, who is currently in his native Lebanon, a fugitive from the Japanese judicial system. visit: https://group.renault.com/en www.dongfeng-global.com