TÜV Rheinland with major investment in laboratory center in China

Yangtze River Delta Operation Hub opens in Taicang / Total investment 22 million euros / Testing focus: Electronic products, photovoltaics, e-mobility and autonomous driving / Largest laboratory site in China

Cologne/Taicang (China), 25 January, 2023. TÜV Rheinland has opened a new laboratory center in Taicang, China. The global testing services provider has invested around 11 million euros in the first construction phase of the "Yangtze River Delta Operation Hub," with a second construction phase adding a further 11 million euros in investment. "For TÜV Rheinland, the Yangtze River Delta Operation Hub is one of the largest single investments in recent years. This milestone project demonstrates the importance TÜV Rheinland attaches to the Chinese market," says Dr. Michael Fübi, CEO of TÜV Rheinland AG. "With our tests for safety and quality, we support Chinese customers as they enter global markets."

The laboratory center is located in Taicang (Jiangsu Province) and is also being built with the support of regional authorities. The city is around 50 kilometers from Shanghai and is already home to around 450 German companies. In the first phase of expansion, TÜV Rheinland will offer its customers testing services in the state-of-the-art testing facilities covering more than 12,000 square meters. These include a more than 5,000-square-meter laboratory for testing photovoltaic modules and a more than 2,000-square-meter laboratory for electromagnetic compatibility (EMC) testing. There is also a 4,000-square-meter laboratory for EMC testing specifically of automotive electronics and automotive parts, as type testing of autonomous vehicle systems as well as electric vehicles is becoming increasingly important.

In further expansion, TÜV Rheinland plans to have laboratory space totaling 37,000 square meters by the end of 2023, making it the largest laboratory site in China. So far, 150 additional jobs have been created in Taicang, and once the expansion is complete, up to 500 TÜV Rheinland employees will work there. The site will be closely integrated into the testing company's global laboratory network.

TÜV Rheinland in China

TÜV Rheinland has been active in China for more than 35 years. Today, the Greater China region (Mainland China, Hong Kong, Taiwan) is the most important region outside Germany for TÜV Rheinland and contributes around one-fifth (2021: 19.5 percent) of the Group's total revenue. Currently, more than 4,000 employees in 27 cities work for the testing company in Greater China. TÜV Rheinland operates a total of 130 different testing and laboratory centers, focusing on product testing, for example of toys, cosmetics and textiles, as well as machinery, components and solar modules. Testing for the mobility industry is becoming increasingly important, for example in rail transport or for vehicle type tests. TÜV Rheinland also opened its first vehicle testing center in China in November 2022. In addition to Taicang and Shanghai, other major TÜV Rheinland sites and laboratory centers are located in Taiwan, Hong Kong, Shenzhen, Guangdong and Ningbo. In 2020, TÜV Rheinland also opened the Smart Lab in Shanghai, the world's first fully automated, intelligent and unattended laboratory in the testing, inspection and certification industry.