CHINA BUS BUSINESS BOOST FOR EUROPEAN SUPPLIERS
Leading Chinese bus manufacturer Xiamen King Long United Automotive Industry is planning to build its first European plant in Hungary. The Xiamen, China-based automotive group, which sold around 1,000 buses in Europe during 2008, said it expects to begin work on the project by mid-2010. The group is expected to make use of local and other European made components in its Hungarian bus assembly. King Long revealed its European plan after signing a declaration of intent over the project but no details of the investment involved were given.
No details of a plant site have yet been revealed, though the firm’s national subsidiary King Long Magyarorszag is considering options around the north eastern Hungarian towns of Gyongyos and Miskolc, its managing director Janos Keleman was reported to have said by China’s Xinhua news agency. Initially, the wholly Chinese-financed plant is scheduled to turn out two buses a day, chiefly for delivery to European customers.
Over the last year, European bus sales have earned King Long in the region of €100m. It already sold 150 Chinese buses in Hungary and recently won a contract to supply another 60 vehicles to the country’s state-owned long-distance coach operator Volan.
King Long, founded in 1988, is a leading exporter in the Chinese bus manufacturing sector and, since 2005, has been targeting customers in Western Europe. It exported 3,088 vehicles in 2008 and already has customers in Sweden, Italy, the UK and Bulgaria. The group has established exclusive distributor and service networks in 55 countries around the globe, it said.
