Hungarian Company’s Subsidiary Starts Production in China

Hungary’s 77 Elektronika Group has made the first Hungarian machinery industry investment in China. The company, which develops and manufactures medical electronics products and is in whole Hungarian ownership, has set up a plant near Shanghai with an investment of almost USD 2 million, it told MTI on Tuesday.

According to the statement, the plant will manufacture LabUMat and UriSed automated urine testing machines for the Chinese market. The company, 77 Medical Devices (Suzhou) Co., Ltd., aims to produce 300 large labs in the first year, but this could rise to 1,000 in a few years.

It was added that 77 Medical Devices (Suzhou) Co., Ltd., a wholly owned subsidiary of the 77 Electronics Group, operates on an industrial area of more than 1,000 square meters, which houses manufacturing, warehousing, office and other support areas. The company is managed by a Hungarian managing director, Richard Mohr, and the other employees are Chinese.

It was also pointed out that the Hungarian family-owned 77 Elektronika Group has more than 20 years of experience in China, having sold its automated urine analysis laboratory equipment in the Far East country.

However, this latest move has taken the company to a new level and, with the Chinese government's preference for local medical equipment in hospitals, they have built a manufacturing facility near Shanghai, one of China's most modern and advanced industrial centers.

The release quoted Sándor Zettwitz, owner-managing director of 77 Electronics Group, as saying that they had taken the step to remain competitive by selling labs with their own brand name and 77 logo as a Chinese company in one of the world's largest and most populous countries. Series production started on Tuesday.

77 Elektronika started out as a company employing just a few people when it was founded in 1986, but has now grown into a group with more than 900 employees and one of the largest companies in the Hungarian healthcare industry.

The 77 Elektronika Group employs more than 120 development engineers in its Budapest and Balatonfüred factories, and the majority of its exports are sales of automated urinalysis systems based on UriSed technology. The biggest markets are the EU, the USA, Brazil, Turkey, Chile, Saudi Arabia and Bangladesh, but in total, they export to almost a hundred countries.