With its market of 100,000 hoists and 30,000 cranes, China is attractive for anyone in the industrial crane marketplace.
But there are huge disparities between the high-volume, low-price domestic market and higher-priced international marketplace.
Spanning that divide is Longlin Huang. An employee of the Jiangyin Machinery Factory since 1979, he worked his way up to factory manager in 1988.
In 1995, he helped set up a joint venture with Japanese manufacturer Kito that was an 80/20 split – mostly owned by Kito, but 20% by Huang and a few other top managers.
As the Chinese economy continues to boom, this factory has become more and more important to the domestic market – it makes 20,000 Kaicheng-brand hoists a year.
Its role – and Huang’s – is set to improve even more. A month ago, Kito announced plans to increase its presence in Jiangyin and increase the volume and the quality of hoist production. Huang will become the company’s top man in China.
