The general manager of Jiangyin Kito Crane Co, Long Lin Huang, will become the top Kito executive in China, and Ichiro Goto, Shanghai Kito Trading Co general manager, would head up the network of sales offices.
Kito is not planning to increase its shareholding of Kito – the remaining 20% of the company would be retained by Huang and several Chinese managers, Shigeki said.
Until 2006, Shanghai Kito’s activities have been limited to chaining up imported hoists and courting Japanese companies with manufacturing facilities in China. “We have to broaden the market,” Goto said. In January it began a service operation in Shanghai.
The Jiangyin factory is about three hours by car from Shanghai. It makes Kito’s CD and MD wire rope hoists and the HJ electric wire rope hoist, the HBJ explosion-proof hoist, and builds cranes. It produces 20,000 Kaicheng-brand units per year. Shigeki said that Kito has plans to increase hoist production in the Jiangyin factory once its production quality rises.
