Interview: German industrial truck maker KION pins hopes on Chinese market

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FRANKFURT, March 2 (Xinhua) -- German multinational company KION Group, a global leader in industrial trucks, aims to unlock the growth potential of the Chinese market and will invest further in the Asian country, KION's Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Gordon Riske said here on Tuesday.

The Frankfurt-headquartered company is active in two business segments: industrial trucks and services, and supply chain solutions. Its order intake hit record high in 2020 despite the COVID-19 pandemic, the company's annual report revealed on Tuesday.

Commenting on the Chinese market's contribution to KION's growth, Riske told Xinhua that China was a high-growth market for KION in 2020, which was mirrored not only in new orders but also in the expansion of businesses and investment.

New orders for industrial trucks increased by 8.6 percent to around 1.6 million units worldwide in 2020, which was mainly driven by the exceptionally strong growth in China, where the year-on-year growth rate was 37 percent, KION's annual report showed.

Global orders for new electric forklift trucks decreased by 0.9 percent in 2020, while orders for trucks fitted with an internal combustion engine saw a 9.6 percent increase owing to the sharp rise in unit sales in China. Order intake for warehouse trucks was also boosted by China's strong growth, rising by 11.2 percent year on year.

"We have an important production site in Xiamen, which we've expanded with a second production unit there," Riske said, noting that the second plant in that southeastern coastal city has been manufacturing warehouse trucks since last year.

Aware that China is one of the world's biggest markets for material handling, the KION Group has decided to invest 100 million euros (120.8 million U.S. dollars) in a new plant for counterbalance trucks in Jinan, the capital city of China's Shandong province.

"We have great support from Weichai Power, the anchor shareholder of KION Group, and from the local government of Shandong province," Riske said, adding that "the walls are up, the roof is on," and KION is on schedule hiring people for the new plant, which intends to create more than 800 new jobs by 2025.

Calling it "very good for both sides to harmonize," the chief executive said the bilateral investment agreement between China and the European Union (EU), whose negotiations were concluded by the end of last year as scheduled, will enable European manufacturers to have broader access to the Chinese market.

This would prove helpful after the Chinese and European regulations and standards, such as safety standards, environmental requirements, etc., have been aligned, giving customers the freedom to choose, Riske said.

Dismissing the argument that dependence on China should be reduced by re-shoring or near-shoring the supply and industrial chains, Riske stressed that "in business, everyone is dependent on everyone else."

"In the manufacturing world, we buy things and make things everywhere around the globe," he said, adding that every country or region needs to be able to manufacture or acquire even basic equipment, and that "competitiveness is a good thing because it drives innovation."

Riske criticized protectionism, emphasizing that "open and free trade is basically the oxygen that every country and company needs to be successful in life."

Normally people who erect "very high walls" are the ones isolated inside "the walls" and they will lose over the longer term, he added.