Visteon Continues to Build Leadership in Asia-Pacific Region

Yokohama, Japan (PROTEXT) - The world's number one systems integrator is fast becoming Asia-Pacific's leading cockpit supplier. With a new multi-year partnership with Mitsuboshi Belting Ltd., a prominent automotive belt and composites manufacturer in Kobe, Japan, Visteon and Mitsuboshi will jointly develop, manufacture and market molded components for cockpit modules. The alliance strengthens Visteon's product development and production capabilities in the region and offers a strong strategic fit with a local supplier. "We are pursuing an aggressive growth strategy in the Asia- Pacific region through strategic alliances such as the Mitsuboshi agreement," said Craig Muhlhauser, president Visteon. "This kind of partnership enables Visteon to deliver leading-edge technology anywhere in the world." "We believe we can best serve our customers when we become an integrated part of their regional industry. We are delighted with the opportunities the Mitsuboshi partnership offers Visteon," Muhlhauser concluded. Visteon's world-class systems integration capabilities offer Asia-Pacific vehicle manufacturers an opportunity to address the needs of their customers with innovative technology systems such as the Superintegrated Cockpit, Visteon Voice Technology, Visteon's Reconfigurable Projected Image Display, and its Information, Communication, Entertainment, Safety and Security (ICES) in-car computing platform. Over the next five years, Visteon and Mitsuboshi will jointly develop components such as instrument panels that can be integrated into Visteon's superintegrated cockpit modules. The partnership offers Visteon a regional manufacturing base from which to ship the highly integrated modules to Japanese and other Asia-Pacific vehicle manufacturers. Visteon was recently named the leading systems integrator among all automotive suppliers in the Automotive Industries 1999 "Quest for Excellence" survey of 1,800 professionals in the automotive industry. Manufacturers ranked Visteon especially favorable in quality -- consistently meeting or exceeding customers' standards -- and in providing consistent, dependable delivery of products and services. Visteon recently announced it had acquired Duck Yang Industry Co., Ltd., and instrument panel manufacturers in South Korea, with similar intentions. Mistuboshi's components will be manufactured at plants in Nagoya and Kanagawa Prefecture. The Chemical and Automotive Components Divisions of Mitsuboshi Belt operates the plants. Visteon will integrate the Mitsuboshi components into its cockpit modules before shipping them to customers. Visteon anticipates its rapid expansion into the Asia-Pacific region will allow it to work closely with regional vehicle manufacturers as they develop concepts like a world car that would be developed in Japan and marketed abroad. With a global delivery system of nearly 125 technical, manufacturing, sales and service facilities located in 21 countries, Visteon is leveraging the talents of its 77,000 employees to deliver innovative, consumer-driven systems solutions to its customers. Visteon news releases and photographs and product specification details are available on the Visteon media web site at ( http://www.visteon.com ). ots Original Text Service: Visteon Automotive Systems Internet: http://www.newsaktuell.de Contact: Media Inquiries, Cheryl Eberwein (USA) 313-248-6321, or ceberwei@visteon.com, or Analyst Inquiries, Kent Niederhofer (USA) 313-390-1467, or kniederh@visteon.com, or Fax (USA) 313- 845-9111, both of Visteon Automotive Systems Web site: http://www.visteon.com Subscribers please note that material bearing the slug "PROTEXT" is not part of CTK's news service and is not to be published under the "CTK" slug. Protext is a commercial service providing distribution of press releases from clients, who are identified in the text of Protext reports and who bear full responsibility for their contents. PROTEXT