General Steel Holdings Forms JV To Develop RFID Solution For Supply Chain Management

General Steel Holdings has signed a definitive agreement with a team of radio-frequency identification (RFID) experts (the Expert Team), to develop and commercialize RFID technology data solutions.

The Expert Team includes several forerunners in the data integration and logistics industries, led by Mr. Michael Au, a veteran with over 17 years experience and more than a dozen patents in RFID technology.

In 1997, Mr. Au developed and patented the first non-contact RFID device for moving vehicles that is still being used today for highway toll collections in the Guangdong Province. In 2005, Mr. Au co-founded Xindeco IoT (formerly Xinda Huicong Technology Company), the first China-based company specializing in the development and production of UHF RFID tags.

Supporting Mr. Au and acting as the Expert Team's chief technical adviser will be Dr. Changyu Wu, a member of the US Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers with over 20 years experience in the development of data-integration devices.

Under the terms of the Agreement, General Steel will own 70% of the joint venture, while the Expert Team will contribute intellectual property, including proprietary RFID technologies, licensed patents and domain expertise. The joint venture entity is expected to be established in March 2015.

Henry Yu, General Steel's Chairman and Chief Executive Officer commented, "This transaction is pivotal to our business transformation strategy of enhancing our core businesses by developing and deploying leading-edge data integration solutions, while also expanding outside of the steel industry into the vibrant logistics and Internet-of-Things sectors. RFID technology will serve as a backbone for our new logistics center, currently under construction in Maoming, China, as well as several other projects under development."

"The venture's proprietary RFID tags and related applications can effectively track supplies, inventories, and goods throughout the manufacturing process, as well as, finished goods and merchandises in transit. Meanwhile, the cloud-based Internet-of-Things platform for bulk commodity logistics will provide real-time data on supplies, inventory, and goods, thereby greatly enhancing its customers' administration and planning processes, as well as, asset tracking and supply chain management. In our view, this venture is a powerful union of technology, vertical domain expertise, relationships, and corporate resources, and we are very excited about its prospects," Mr. Yu added.

On behalf of the Expert Team, Michael Au said, "We are glad to partner with General Steel. We see tremendous synergies in leveraging General Steel's vast resources and relationships to speed the development and commercialization of our cloud-based Internet-of-Things platform, proprietary technologies, and domain expertise. We believe this new venture is a win-win combination that highlights the core strengths of both parties."