TPT July 2008

I ndustry N ews

Sikora opens a second office in China

SMS Group achieves record business for 2007 The SMS Group, Germany, achieved record success in 2007 with an increased order intake of around 60 per cent. The company – a specialist in metallurgical plant and rolling mill technology and tube, long- product and forging technology – expects the boom to continue with even better development expected this year. In 2007, the company’s order intake was €5,142 million (2006: €3,235 million), while sales reached around €2,937 million (2006: EUR 2,826 million). At €176 million, the group’s pre-tax result was double the previous year’s figure (2006: €85 million). In 2007, the Group employed a worldwide total of 7,613 employees, a drop of over 1,000 staff compared to 2006. The reduction in staff was mainly due to the sale of the plastics machinery construction business, an area the SMS group has pulled out of completely. Explaining the reasons for the pullout from plastics machine construction, Dr Weiss comments, “Because the SMS group was nowhere near as successful in plastics machine construction as we were in metallurgical machine and plant construction, we decided some time ago to completely pull out of plastics technology. With our sale in this area in 2007, we successfully completed the pullout.” The company is now entirely focused on its core business of metallurgical plant construction. In 2007, another 520 employees were hired in this area. The group plans to create an extra 700 jobs in 2008 – mainly for qualified engineers. “It is already clear that the exceptional boom in metallurgical plant construction will continue into its fourth year in 2008. Global steel production is expected to increase to 1.4 billion t over the year. We are pleased to see that this growth not only comes from the threshold countries alone – in other words China, India, Brazil and Russia – but also from our customers in other regions of the world that are increasingly placing orders with us,” said Dr Heinrich Weiss, chairman of the SMS group. The current boom has broken through the normal peak-and-trough pattern in the steel industry. According to the SMS Group, this is because the threshold countries require large quantities of steel to build up their

Sikora Asia has established a second Chinese office in Suzhou, situated in a heavily industrialised area close to Shanghai. This office further strengthens the company’s presence on the Chinese market. The office consists of two bureaus providing enlarged space for the employees to meet all customer demands in their sales area. Located in the centre of all commercial activities, the Suzhou office will contribute to the advancement of existing customer relations and provide the company with more opportunities to network and establish new sales leads. The decisive reason for the opening of the office was to increase product support onsite. Mr Wanbin Chen, head of Sikora Asia, feels very confident about the business expansion. He says, “Our customers can expect a more convenient service which includes lower service costs due to shorter traveling methods. As we also engaged new employees we can more profoundly react to individual customer needs and most of all we can improve the information flow with them.” Sikora Asia was founded in 1991 and is a subsidiary company of the German  Mr Wanbin Chen – head of Sikora Asia – celebrates the opening of the new office in Suzhou

based Sikora AG. The company is known internationally for its highly qualitative measuring and control equipment for the wire, cable and hose sector. The headquarters of Sikora Asia is situated in Fuzhou, in the southeast of China. The new Chinese location is part of the Sikora strategy of worldwide representation and service. The economic upswing of the Chinese market has motivated many customers to make investments in the field of measuring devices for the cable and plastics branch. This trend follows firm intentions of large companies, especially machine manufacturers to invest in completely new production lines. The country’s development potential positioned China as 3 rd among the top 20 exporting nations worldwide in 2007. Over the coming years China will further play a major role in the cable and tube sector. Sikora Asia – China Fax : +86 512 67772647 Email : sales@sikora-asia.net Website : www.sikora.net Sikora AG (headquarters) – Germany Fax : +49 421 48900 90 Email : katja.beyer@sikora.net Website : www.sikora.com

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J uly 2008

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