Shanghai (ZXZC)- CATL announced on August 12 that its board of directors had approved the proposal of building an industrial new energy vehicle ("NEV") battery base in Hungary.

According to CATL's announcement, the company intends to pour no more than €7.34 billion in constructing a power battery production base in Debrecen city, Hungary. The project will be managed by Contemporary Amperex Technology Hungary Projekt Menedzsment Korlátolt Felelősségű Társaság, which is 100% controlled by Contemporary Amperex Technology (Hong Kong) Limited, a wholly-owned subsidiary of CATL. 

Signing scene in China; photo credit: CATL

At the new base, CATL plans to build a power battery system production line with an annual capacity of 100GWh. Construction works are expected to be completed within 64 months after the ground-breaking in 2022.

The new plant, which will be CATL's second in Europe, is built to further strengthen CATL's global strategic deployment, boost its overseas business development, and meet the ever-growing demands from overseas markets, according to CATL's statement.

In 2019, CATL founded Contemporary Amperex Technology Thuringia GmbH (“CATT”) in Erfurt, Thuringia, a state in east-central Germany, marking its first global expansion in EV battery manufacturing.

On April 4, 2022, CATT was granted the second partial approval for battery cell production from the government of Thuringia, obtaining an initial capacity of 8 GWh per year.