曝光台 注意防骗
网曝天猫店富美金盛家居专营店坑蒙拐骗欺诈消费者
Joint Ventures and Cooperative R&D Activities
Joint ventures with foreign enterprises came relatively late to the Chi-nese aviation industry. The first joint venture in this sector was estab-lished in 1996, when Pratt & Whitney partnered with the Chengdu Engine Group Company to establish a production facility in Chengdu to produce components for aircraft engines and industrial gas turbines. The initial investment was only $25.1 million. Since that time, how-ever, foreign investment in the Chinese aviation sector has expanded rapidly, and today most major Western commercial aircraft manufac-turers and aviation subsystems suppliers have established joint ventures in China.
Joint ventures are frequently regarded as an effective vehicle for Western companies attempting to gain access to the Chinese market. Certainly, Chinese aviation industry leaders have made no secret of their desire to trade market access for technology, and joint ventures are their vehicle of choice for gaining access to advanced Western tech-nologies. Naturally, partnerships in technological areas of particular concern to the Chinese have received the highest priority. One such area is aircraft engines: The earliest joint ventures in the aviation sector, spearheaded by Pratt & Whitney, were with engine component pro-ducers. Since then, both GE and Rolls-Royce have established joint ventures in China and greatly expanded local procurement. Another area is composite-materials manufacturing techniques. Both Boeing and Airbus have established joint ventures specializing in composite components, and Airbus has recently transferred the technology for manufacturing the entire composite wing of the A320 airliner to its joint-venture composite manufacturing center in Harbin.
It should be noted, however, that joint ventures per se do not guarantee effective market access. Those that do not provide access to coveted technologies or—even more problematically—are perceived to compete against domestic producers are not likely to receive prefer-ential treatment and may indeed face severe obstacles. In this regard, the case of Embraer’s joint-venture production line in China can be instructive. Established in 2003, the venture is said to have struggled from the start. Chinese airlines were slow to place orders, and many of the orders that were received were repeatedly postponed for various reasons. Despite a production capacity of 24 aircraft per year, the facil-ity had delivered only 36 ERJ-145 aircraft as of August 2010. Embraer’s lack of success is likely related to the anticipated arrival of COMAC’s ARJ21 regional jet, which has undoubtedly influenced the procure-ment decisions of Chinese airlines, as they expect to be required to place orders for the ARJ21.
It is also worth noting that Western aerospace companies have been generally cautious about transferring advanced technology to China or setting up joint ventures in critical areas. However, a turning point may have been have reached with the COMAC C919 project. Unlike the ARJ21 program, which has sourced directly from West-ern suppliers, COMAC management has made it explicitly clear that foreign bidders on the C919 program are expected to form joint ven-tures with Chinese partners, especially in high-technology areas such as advanced materials and flight control systems, where Chinese tech-nology is lagging. In areas of less concern, the Chinese are content with traditional subcontracting or other work-share arrangements, although according to COMAC Deputy General Manager Wu Guanghui, local production is considered a minimum requirement for foreign suppliers to the C919 program (Zhang, 2010, p. 34).
中国航空网 www.aero.cn
航空翻译 www.aviation.cn
本文链接地址：
Ready for Takeoff China’s Advancing Aerospace Industry(30)
