JinkoSolar has acquired the manufacturing assets of the struggling Topoint group of companies.
Topoint, based in Haining, Zhejiang Province, is currently undergoing restructuring under the supervision of the Haining City government and the Haining City People's Court.
The agreement will see Jinko acquire 500MW of cell and 500MW of wafer capacity plus 100MW of module capacity.
“Topoint's high-quality assets, consisting of technologically advanced and recently purchased equipment, will enable us to cost-effectively meet the growing demand of our strong international customer base,” said Kangping Chen, CEO, JinkoSolar.
“We believe that the geographic proximity of our existing facilities in Haining City with Topoint's assets will allow us to leverage our existing logistical infrastructure to efficiently integrate Topoint's assets,” he said.
China is currently encouraging consolidation in the PV manufacturing sector with a recent set of standard practices forcing firms to invest in modern facilities and practices or lose access to state support in the domestic market. A list of 109 companies that met the criteria was released last week. Currently restructing Topoint was not included.
“As the industry continues to consolidate, we expect dominant PV industry players to continue to acquire the high-quality assets of companies exiting the industry,” added Chen.
In October last year Trina CEO Gao Jifan said local governments needed to stop bailing out struggling solar manufacturers and start letting the market pick the winners. It is not clear which of those two categories the deal between Jinko and Topoint falls into.
