Nanjing Metro will be the first Transport operator to benefit from the JV’s offering

Brétigny-sur-Orge, France–Thales and Panda have announced the creation of a joint venture called Nanjing Thales Panda Transportation System Co., Ltd. It is another important milestone in the collaboration between the two companies that started in 2001. At that time, Thales and Panda were awarded to supply the contactless smart card automatic fare collection system for the Nanjing metro, a contract that was signed in 2003.

By combining their forces, Thales and Panda are perfectly positioned to compete and succeed in the Chinese market. Thales provides its expertise in integrated fare collection systems and technology, areas in which the company is a market leader. Panda who offers its experience in manufacturing brings its in-depth knowledge of the Chinese market into the JV. With the joint venture, the two companies will continue to work closely together and improve their Chinese business operations in terms of product design, production, installation, commissioning and sales.

Based in Nanjing, the joint venture is formed 60% by Thales and 40% by Panda. The objective is to provide better services to the Chinese market for Integrated Fare Collection systems (IFS) in the public transport area. In addition, the new company with Chinese production centers will gain an important competitive advantage for the export business to other countries and especially in Asia.

Finally, this will also improve the economical cooperation and technical exchanges between France and China. The City of Nanjing is the first city in China to benefit from the strong know-how of this partnership. The joint venture will focus on the manufacturing, project management, sales, import and export, systems integration, after-sales and related consulting services for electronic and specialized technical equipment in the area of Automatic Fare Collection Systems.

Thanks to the new partnership, China will benefit from the state-of-the-art technologies developed by Thales, which will contribute to the further development of public transport in China. The Sino-French partnership also confirms Thales long-term commitment to China. It helps to build important relationships with public transport operators and travelers with localized production and a common language, Chinese. The joint venture guarantees the long-term reliability of transport systems in China.

About Thales Thales is an international electronics and systems group, serving defense, aerospace, services and security markets. The group employs 61,500 people worldwide and generated revenues of EUR 10.6 billion in 2003. The Transport & Energy activity of Thales (www. thales-transportservices.com) provides systems, products and services for automatic fare collection, operator support and access control applications. Thales’ references in the field of contactless technology include contracts in the Netherlands, Oslo, Bangkok, Taiwan, Nanjing, Singapore, New Delhi, Hong Kong, France… About Panda Panda Electronics Group Co., Ltd. is a large electronics enterprise with a history of sixty-eight years, one of 120 national pilot enterprises and 520 key enterprises. The Company has made great contribution in the fields of national economy, the modern construction of national defense and the improvement of people’s material and cultural lives. The Company is placed in the leading position in electronics industry in China. The 2003 turnover is 26.3 Billion RMB.