COFIDES has extended a 2.236 million euro joint venture loan to the subsidiary established by FERSA BEARINGS in China. 25% of that sum will be drawn from COFIDES’ own funds and 75% from the Fund for Small and Medium-Sized Enterprise Foreign Investment Operations (FONPYME).

FERSA BEARINGS is a SME, which since 1968 is engaged in manufacturing bearings for the industrial and automotive sectors. Supported by COFIDES and FONPYME, the project consists in building a new factory to produce tapered roller bearings in Jiaxing. Although FERSA BEARINGS owns a technical and commercial office in Brazil, the Chinese factory is its first productive plant abroad. The first stage of the plant will be made up of 4 automatic lines, which will increase the competitiveness of FERSA BEARINGS. The total investment of the project amounts to 4.3 million euros and is expected to create 120 new jobs.

Starting operations in April 2011, the new Chinese productive plant will manufacture 4 million high quality tapered roller bearings for global manufacturers within the automotive sector located in China. Business excellence is a priority for FERSA BEARINGS in the Chinese and Spanish plants. FERSA BEARINGS was awarded the Aragon’s Business Excellence Prize.

By financing viable private sector investment projects in developing and emerging countries undertaken by SMEs like FERSA BEARINGS, COFIDES contributes both to the internationalization of Spanish enterprise and to the development of local economies.