Japanese steelmaker Kobe Steel's wholly-owned subsidiary Kobelco Cranes Co., Ltd has announced that it will form a joint venture with Sichuan, Chinese-based Chengdu Chenggong Construction Machinery Co., Ltd. (CG) in October to manufacture crawler cranes in China.
According to a Kobelco statement, the new plant will be located in the Chengdu Economic and Technological Zone in Chengdu, Sichuan Province and will carry out production for construction, civil engineering and new energy investments, further expanding its business.
A total of JPY 2 billion will be invested in the planned joint venture plant, which is to be called Chengdu Kobelco Cranes Co., Ltd. Production is to start in August 2012 and by 2015 Kobelco aims to produce 80 crawler cranes a year to meet around seven percent of the total demand in China.
Kobelco Cranes has a 50 percent share of the Japanese market for crawler cranes, its main product. Kobelco estimates that it has a 17 percent share of the global market. Kobelco's plant in China will be its second overseas manufacturing location after India. The new China-based plant will be the first facility in China of a Japanese manufacturer to make crawler cranes.