Japan-based W-Scope Corporation sets up its first European plant in Hungary to directly supply the European market with separator film used for lithium-ion batteries. The 720 million euros project is the single largest investment announced in the country so far this year. Hungary aims to triple local electric vehicle battery production capacity by 2025.
W-Scope Corporation engages in the development and manufacturing of lithium-ion secondary battery separators used in electric vehicles. The group has operations in South Korea, China and Hongkong, and among its key partners are LG Chem and Samsung SDI.
The new plant in Nyíregyháza, Eastern Hungary will directly supply products to customers across Europe from the second half of 2024. To respond to the explosive growth of the lithium-ion battery market, the planned separator film line and the coating line will function at an annual capacity of 1.2 billion square metres.
As Ko Kyunh Hwan, Managing Director of the W-Scope’s Hungarian subsidiary highlighted, the new plant was established to implement an efficient value chain and to actively respond to carbon reduction policies all over the world.
“Through this investment, we plan to achieve high productivity and cost competitiveness based on our own process technology and we will leap forwards as a global company leading the battery separator industry and future EV market,” he underlined.
The automotive industry has become the backbone of the Hungarian economy in the past years, which brought new investments in the EV field as well, placing Hungary at the forefront of the global battery revolution.
“Whoever wins the investment in the EV industry wins the future and can lay the foundations for future economic growth,” underlined Péter Szijjártó, Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade emphasising that Hungary is one of the favourite investment destinations of leading international companies setting the pace of the global automotive revolution.
The Minister underlined that Hungary is one of the flagships of the transition of the European automotive industry while becoming a major player in the production and export of batteries.
Hungary is the world’s fifth-largest exporter of batteries and has the third-largest battery production capacity after China and the United States. The government aims to raise local electric vehicle battery production capacity from 50 GWh to 150 GWh by 2025.
