Kalmar Industries has announced plans to invest about USD10 million in a new assembly plant in China's Shanghai province as part of a major assault on the rapidly-developing Asia-Pacific market.
The company said the plant's primary role would be to meet container handling equipment orders - the fastest growth area for Kalmar products.
"Shanghai is an optimal location because it has become the most important port area in China, with major expansions planned, including a new port coming into operation in 2005," the company said.
Kalmar's new plant would comprise about 7000 square metres (75,000 square feet) of factory and office buildings on a 50,000-square-metre (540,000-square-foot) property and would "ensure sufficient capacity to meet rapidly increasing demand in the Asia-Pacific region".
The new facility, which will become Kalmar's Chinese service and support hub, would assemble its first machines - terminal tractors - by the end of 2005.
Kalmar's terminal tractors are presently produced in small numbers at a factory at Wai Gao Qiao in Shanghai.
Kalmar said it believed the new plant would play an important role in boosting penetration of its rubber-tyred gantry cranes into Asia.