By Greg Gao

(JW Insights) Mar 21 -- China Railway Rolling Stock Corporation (CRRC,中国中车), leading Chinese supplier of rail transit equipment, started on March 18 construction of its medium and low voltage power device manufacturing project in Wuxi of eastern China’s Jiangsu Province, JW Insights learned.

With a first phase investment of RMB5.9 billion($145 million), the project is located in Yixing Economic Development Zone, a semiconductor manufacturing cluster, in Wuxi.

The CRRC’s products are mainly used in the field of electric vehicles. The plant can add an annual production capacity of 360,000 pieces of medium and low voltage component substrates, meeting the demand for 3 million electric vehicles or 300GW new energy power generation installed capacity annually, according to the company.   

The project took only more than half a year from the signing of the contract to the start of construction, setting a new record for the construction of projects of such scale. After completion, it will effectively boost the high-end power semiconductor supply chain in Wuxi, driving the overall upgrading of industrial strength, said a local government official.

Wuxi regards integrated circuits as a critical industry. Last year, its market scale exceeded RMB200 billion($29 billion), forming a complete industrial chain covering chip design, wafer manufacturing, packaging and testing.

CRRC was formed in 2015 through the merger of CNR (中国北车) and CSR (中国南车), and went listed both on the Shanghai Stock Exchange and Hong Kong Stock Exchange the same year.

Beijing-headquartered CRRC is the world’s largest supplier of rail transit equipment with complete product lines and leading technologies. It has 46 wholly-owned and majority-owned subsidiaries with over 170,000 employees, according to its official website.