TÜV Rheinland: Multi-Million-Euro Investment in Largest Laboratory Site in China

Yangtze River Delta Operation Hub / Focus on testing e. g.: Electronic products, photovoltaics, e-mobility, and autonomous driving / www.tuv.com

TÜV Rheinland has opened a new laboratory center in Taicang, near Shanghai. The Yangtze River Delta Operation Hub covers an area of almost 40,000 square meters with around 500 employees, making it the testing service provider's largest laboratory site in China. TÜV Rheinland has invested more than 28 million Euros in the construction of the new center. The focus of testing is on electronic products, photovoltaics, e-mobility and autonomous driving, among other things.

The operational hub now offers local customers a convenient and efficient one-stop service experience, catering to the region's industrial transformation and upgrading needs.

The grand opening was attended by guests including Wang Xiangyuan, Secretary of Taicang Municipal Party Committee, Philipp Kortüm, Chief Financial Officer of TÜV Rheinland Group, and Yushun Wong, President and CEO of TÜV Rheinland Greater China, among others.

Philipp Kortüm highlighted the region’s particular significance in the production of technologies such as photovoltaics, electric vehicles and electronic products. This would be accompanied by increased demand for testing services, which TÜV Rheinland's new laboratory site would be able to provide. "Over the past 35 years, we have tested products from more than 300,000 local companies for over 150 regions or markets around the globe. Our testing services help companies prepare their products and services for global markets," says Kortüm.

In his speech, Wang Xiangyuan highlighted: “As a global leader in inspection and testing services, TÜV Rheinland has become a synonym for 'safety and quality' in the hearts of many enterprises and consumers. The successful opening of the second phase of the project today will become a benchmark for German enterprises in the high-end service industry in Taicang."

Taicang, 50 kilometers from Shanghai, is home to around 530 German companies.

Yushun Wong emphasized the company's long-standing presence in China. The expansion of the Yangtze River Delta Operation Hub is proof of the importance TÜV Rheinland attaches to the Chinese market. In addition to the testing services already mentioned, the site has laboratories for safety and performance testing for various sectors such as textiles, toys, infant and child products, chemicals, light industrial products, home appliances, electric and garden tools, lighting fixtures, audio and video products, and automotive LiDAR with state-of-the-art technology. The hub also features a new packaging and transportation physical testing laboratory, a light distribution laboratory with a large distributed photometer, and an intelligent driving sensing fusion laboratory, marking TÜV Rheinland's first global lab for automotive LiDAR performance measurement.

Through its expertise in testing, inspection, and certification, TÜV Rheinland is committed to supporting local enterprises go global. The company plans to continue leveraging its global resources, investing in digitalization, artificial intelligence, new energy vehicles, and sustainability, while nurturing professional talent and enhancing its service network and laboratory capabilities to empower technological innovation.

TÜV Rheinland in China

TÜV Rheinland has been active in China for more than 35 years. Today, the Greater China region is the most important region outside Germany for TÜV Rheinland and contributes around one-fifth (2023: 485.40 million €) of the Group's total revenue (2023: 2.44 billion €). Currently, more than 4,700 employees in 28 main cities work for the testing company in Greater China. TÜV Rheinland operates a total of 131 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 Taipei, Hong Kong, Shenzhen, Guangzhou 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.