The company combined a hoist and crane plant into the new 40,000 sq m facility, which was completed in May. It can produce 35,000 hoists and 500 cranes per year. The factory supplies hoists and cranes to the Chinese market and supplies products and sub-components to Kito Japan.
The plant is operated by a joint venture company called Jiangyin Kito Crane Co. Kito recently bought more shares to increase its ownership to 80%.
“Amidst the background of the developing Chinese economy, the demand for hoists and cranes has greatly increased, and the business volume of this joint venture has become more than 2.5 times over the past three years,” the company said in a statement.
The total investment of the factory is CNY 110m ($13.3m).
* In June, the Japanese News Digest reported that Kito was expanding output of its Showa, Japan chain block and lever hoist factory by between 10% and 20% for six months due to increasing domestic and strong sales to US subsidiary Harringon Hoists. It said that the company would pay for overtime work instead of investing in new production equipment.