(Yicai) May 21 -- Kedali Industry, a Chinese maker of precision structural parts for power batteries, intends to invest USD49 million to build a plant in the United States to promote its overseas expansion.

The factory will be located in Indiana and produce precision structural components for power and energy storage batteries, the Shenzhen-based company announced yesterday. The construction is expected to last 30 months.

Once fully operational, the plant will have an annual output value of about USD70 million, Kedali noted, adding that the project still pends regulatory approval from authorities in China and the US.

Kedali has been actively expanding overseas in recent years. It has already built and put into production lithium battery precision structural component plants in several European countries, including Sweden, Hungary, and Germany. Last September, the firm unveiled a plan to invest EUR30 million (USD32.6 million) to hike the production capacity of its German plant.

Kedali is one of China’s major suppliers of precision structural components for lithium batteries, with Contemporary Amperex Technology, Panasonic, Northvolt, Automotive Cells, LG, Samsung, and Tesla among its main clients.

Kedali’s revenue from the precision structural components for lithium batteries business reached CNY10.1 billion (USD1.4 billion) last year, accounting for 96 percent of the total, according to the company’s latest annual report. It achieved CNY534 million (USD73.8 million) in overseas sales, making up 5.1 percent of its total revenue.

Kedali’s shares [SHE: 002850] were trading down 0.6 percent at CNY99.20 (USD13.71) as of lunch break in Shenzhen today.

Editor: Futura Costaglione