I reject the across-the-board critisisms of Chinese forklifts trucks. There is some real junk out there, yes. But I am a marketing consultant to three forklift dealers, two of them offering Heli trucks. If you buy a Heli with a Japonses engine and the German steel uprights you have an excellent machine that requires much less unschedulled maintenance than other supposedly top of the line trucks. Value-for-money Heli is hard to beat.

Makes me think of the garbage people talked about Japonese cars fifty years ago.
Look at them now.

Yes, Chinese manufacturers have realized how it is important to have a quality brand. I have been in the forklift business for 18 years, a Japanese Brand, I have moved to Heavy Equipment Industries, a Chinese brand and I can say it is at par with the leading brands here, and now currently in the Storage business. I can say that Chinese products have improved a lot, from forklift to racking systems they have employed a lot of expats in their manufacturing process. Even here in the Philippines we can see more Chinese technicians coming in for after sales service which were not available many years ago. No wonder why their economy heats up, don't you think? Its nice to know that that China has improved and keeping it up!

If we have plenty funds, we will do better. We double our exporting this year and will gain more in 2008. It's pity that our production can't catch our sale. The QC is a problem that caused by tech and other things. But with the growing of Chinese manufacturer, it will be solved in 1 year or 2. You can see the trend that Chinese forklift will take over more market year by year, just as the Japanese forklift used to do.

Some one who pay attention to the political aspect is absurd... I wonder where did you know these thing about China. From FLG? So funny.

Wow, not the reply I expected. I will agree that most major manufaturers today (including those in the US)do have suppliers from China which helps to reduce the cost of the finished product.

@ batman

Several reasons:

- WTO regulations have forced China to increase its export duties
- Strong Yuan / Weak Yen and Won
- All major Japanese and Korean companies have factories and/or major suppliers in China

But basically: pricing is the only real advantage Chinese brands have towards Japanese and Korean brands. If you can buy the latter at almost the same cost of Chinese machines, my advice to you is to steer clear from Chinese trucks

Question for all of the people from China that have all the positive remarks about the Chinese forklifts. Why is a Chinese forklift so close in cost to a Japanese and Korean forklift when the average wage for a Chinese "skilled" assembly worker is $2 per hour compared to the Korean wage of $22 and Japanese wage of $31 per hour? These wages can be confirmed on Forbes website.

@ joanne b

Very interesting point there Joanne. It is true that the Chinese manufacturers do not quite understand the concept of a loyal customer base and repeating business. They are just interested in selling as many trucks as they can. They will sell to an overseas dealer for 100, to a small Chinese wholesale company for 98 (because the owner of that wholesale company is an ex-employee of the company and knows some people in the sales dept.) After that, both the manufacturer and the trading company will start bombarding the entire market (I have no idea where they get those mailinglists, it's like that is a shared sales tool for all these companies) with mails that they are the best manufacturer in China and their customer is the most important,... anyway, you get the idea.

There are at least three points that the Chinese need to improve on, if they are to penetrate the overseas market:
- Brandbuilding
- Respect for their dealers (thus stopping sales to Chinese wholesale companies)
- Understanding the importance of the aftersales market. At this moment, they don't have a clue how to tackle this problem

We've been importing Chinese Forklifts since 1998 and believe that the quality and workmanship of the Forklifts have improved considerably. There is still a long way to go in consumer confidence. Reliability is as good as their Japanese counterparts, but Chinese relations are sometimes difficult to establish as they will supply to anybody that is interested in purchasing, regardless of numbers required. I feel that if the Manufacturer's (and second party Dealers) continue to sell to anybody, the Market will be flooded with these Chinese Forklifts that not all consumers are quite yet confident in purchasing, hence the Market will not inflate, but quite possibly deflate. We have not been able to increase the price of our most popular Forklift since 1998 due to many small business owners(in no specified industry) trying to make a quick sale and not being able to provide consumers with warranty and after sales back up. Purchasing costs have increased though, thus not leaving us with not much profit margin. Are we wasting our time (and money) I wonder?

@ Adrian

The 2007 figures are not yet published by CITA. CITA is a very poor organisation by the way, rather focused on marketing itself than on actually helping it's members getting market information.

But back to the issue at hand. The figures are a rough estimate from what I heard in the market, but will be very close to the true number. Also your estimate of 13-15K Chinese trucks exported will be pretty accurate.

I agree Chinaman, there is definately signs of improvement and subsequently change in reputation and then sales follow.

I did not realise it was as big as 10,000 exported by the top 4 - this must mean about 13,000-15,000 total and at a rate which is growing by around 50% a year! How did you come across this 10k number - do organisations such as CITA provide these figures or something, or do these particular companies state it on their website?

Chinese forklift manufacture is growing , and will come to all the world. It will make much progress in this area.

Although I understand the concept of being opposed to buying Chinese products, your post has little or no relevance to the topic posted. As to what concerns the quality of the Chinese trucks, it is true, it's not great yet, but they are getting there. Give them a year or two to get rid of the last inperfections and they will move in on the market of Korean trucks... fast! In five years or so, their quality (and consequentially their price) will increase and they will be able to compete against our 2nd class quality trucks. With over 10.000 CB trucks exported by the top 4 manufacturers Heli, Hangcha, Baoli and Hytsu, they are market tested at this very moment and adjustments are made upon dealer remarks.
And towards the remark of all companies being government owned: Hangcha, Baoli and Hytsu are privately owned and they all have JV partners from either Japan or the United States.

I have given up buying anything from China if at all possible. Unfortunately some products are only made in China so I am stuck buying them. If you are so sure that I am full of crap please supply some facts disputing what I have written. My post is filled with facts that are easily researchable.

full of nonsense. ****. If you continue think of us like that, give up using any Chinese products.

My opinion of the Chinese forklifts is that they are crap and until the Chinese government loosens their grip on their own economy the quality will not get any better. The Chinese government wants one thing: a huge military to take over the world. They have their hands in over 90% of Chinese businesses which explains why the Chinese workers are so mistreated and the quality control in China is horrible. The Chinese government does not care about lead in the paint, poison in the dog food or anything else. They care only about how much profit they can make to build their military and until that changes the forklifts will remain crap.