No sympathy for company's losses due to closure of polluting supplier

THE GREATER CHINA CEO OF SCHAEFFLER, a leading supplier of bearings and precision components to the automotive industry, reportedly submitted a report to the Shanghai authorities detailing the company faced "considerable" financial losses, because its local raw material supplier was shut down because of its failure to stop polluting. Beijing News commented on Wednesday:

In its report Schaeffler said the shutting down of its local supplier could halt the production of over 200 kinds of cars worldwide and cause a loss of about 300 billion yuan ($47 billion).

However, it is unlikely that the German company has only one raw material supplier in China, and ensuring a stable supply of materials should not pose too much of a problem.