Panasonic Welding Systems (Tangshan) Co., Ltd. (PWST for short), founded in 1994, is a joint-venture company co-invested by Matsushita Electric group of Japan and Tangshan Kaiyuan Electric Group Company with a total investment of 1.3 billion Japanese Yen and cooperation term of 20 years. The company is specialized in design, development and manufacture of Panasonic CO2/MAG welding machine, argon-arc welding machine, AC&DC arc welding machine, air plasma cutter, resistance welding machine, welding robot system and related share parts for welding and cutting. The annual output of the company is 80,000 sets, of which 25% is for export. Early in November 1997, pioneering in the welding machine industry, PWST acquired the certification of ISO9001 quality certification. In November 1998, it passed the certification of ISO14001 for environment management system.