Innovation Network Corporation of Japan (INCJ), Hitachi Construction Machinery Co Ltd and Nissan Motor Co Ltd have signed a definitive agreement to integrate Hitachi's and Nissan's forklift businesses after announcing merger plans last year.

The forklift businesses were run by their subsidiaries, TCM Corporation and Nissan Forklift Co Ltd, which will now be integrated into a new company, UniCarriers Corporation. It will be established and primarily operated by investment fund INCJ, which is backed by the Japanese Government.

A Nissan spokesperson tells Forkliftaction.com News UniCarriers aims to be a globally-competitive manufacturer and is establishing a management team to implement its business plans.

Majority shareholder INCJ is investing JPY30 billion (USD386.4 million) in UniCarriers. The spokesperson says the funds will be used to expand the new company's business.

"INCJ's mandate is to support projects that combine technologies and varied expertise across industries and materialise open innovation," he says.

While not disclosing any changes to the Nissan dealer network, he says the importance of the sales network "remains unchanged".

"We will focus on how quickly we can implement our strategic projects to be one of the top global players in the industry together with our partners," he says.

A report in Japan's Mainichi Daily News says Hitachi Construction and Nissan have moved to secure a large share in growing markets as many Japanese forklift manufacturers do not have sufficient operational scale to capture share in expanding markets (Forkliftaction.com News #542).