Deere & Company announced today that it has completed its acquisition of the Ningbo Benye Tractor & Automobile Manufacture Co. Ltd., located in Ningbo in southern China. In June, Deere had announced having signed a definitive agreement to purchase Benye.

John Deere (Deere & Company) is the world''s leading provider of advanced products and services for agriculture and forestry and a major provider of advanced products and services for construction, lawn and turf care, landscaping and irrigation. John Deere also provides financial services worldwide and manufactures and markets engines used in heavy equipment.

Benye, a joint venture, is the largest tractor manufacturer in southern China and currently receives 95 per cent of its revenue from sales within China, although it has exported to 70 countries worldwide. It makes 20 to 80 horsepower range tractors that are claimed to work efficiently both in paddy fields and dry land.

Its backward steering tractors, which are specially designed for the American market, have been introduced globally.

Deere expects to leverage Benye''s product range and manufacturing capacity for sales in China and into other Asian, African, and Commonwealth of Independent States markets.

The acquisition expands John Deere''s product line for Chinese farmers and enhances the company''s worldwide capacity to produce low horsepower tractors. In China, Deere currently builds tractors in the 60 to 120 horsepower range at a joint venture tractor factory in Tianjin while Benye mainly builds tractors in the 20 to 50 horsepower range.

Deere has provided products and services to the China agricultural market since 1976 and has manufactured equipment in China since 1997. Currently, the company manufactures combines in Jiamusi and tractors in Tianjin.