The second visit in Korea took us one hour outside Seoul to a city called Chonan and the target was ABB's factory in Korea. The taxi driver that took us from the bus station to the factory did not need any more guidance than “ABB” which was the first indication of how big ABB is in Chonan.

We had the opportunity to meet three people from the Human Resources Group, Manager Young-Gon Kim, Section Chief Kyu-Min Lee and Asst. Section Chief Chang-Hee Lee. They gave us a presentation of ABB and all the different technical solutions ABB offers.

The factory opened in 1992 and except the factory in Chonan, the headquarter of ABB Korea is located in Seoul, and two other offices for Marine & Turbocharge in Busan in the southernmost part of Korea. ABB is the biggest company in Chonan with 800 employees and they make Power Products, Discrete Automation and Motion, Power Systems, Process Automation and Low Voltage Products. We were guided to the Customer Center where we were given a entertaining demonstration of the robot arms. The demonstration was a really quick and precise robot arm that gave us a show in how to move pool balls in very high speed.

We want to thank the HR crew for letting us visit ABB in Chonan!

Viktor Hallman and Vlad Månsson

It is a busy and hectic Monday morning in downtown Seoul. The subway is filled with businessmen and businesswomen, properly dressed and eager to head for work. We are in the middle of the crowd, inspired by the buzzing atmosphere and excited for our first company visit at the Swedish Trade Council in Korea.

From their office in central Seoul, the Swedish Trade Council provides Swedish companies with assistance so they can establish themselves and grow on the Korean market. The staff has extensive expertise within diverse business areas and works with a broad spectrum of Swedish companies. Among other staff, we were introduced to Christoffer Strömberg, Axel Brangenfeldt and senior project manager John Kim. They were more than happy to tell us more about the current business development in Korea and why Swedish companies should choose to establish themselves here.

The country's development over the last decades has been astonishing and this is partly due to the hard-working culture within the country. Korea now has a world leading business with strong focus on green development and high investments in R&D. Together with the high level of education, this makes Korea a country to count on in the future. Recently, a free trade agreement between the EU and Korea has been established. This means enhanced conditions for Swedish companies to export to Korea, which has a high domestic consumption, something that is evident in the recently opened H&M stores all over Seoul. According to prognosis from the Swedish Trade Council, Korea will be an increasingly important business hub in Asia with great opportunities to offer for the companies who dare to take the step into this rather unknown peninsula which squeezed in between the economic superpowers China and Japan.

Thank you for a really interesting first company visit in Korea!

Vlad Månsson and Viktor Hallman

On the other side of the road from National Chiao Tung University is the Hsinchu Science Park, also called the Silicon Valley of Taiwan. As Swedish engineering students, we were very interested to learn more about Taiwanese High-Tech companies and to see how they operate. Young Optics is world leading in Pico Projection Modules and Projection lens manufacturing and its subsidiary, Rays Optics, offers cutting edge Mega Lenses solutions for IP cameras. They invited us to the Science Park and guided us through optical lenses and science-fiction-like projection technology.

The company is based in Taiwan but has over 3000 employees worldwide with manufacturing in Mainland China and office in USA. The company is in a fast growing phase and aims to expand into Europe by continuing development in technology and application innovation. The visit was very interesting from technical perspective as Young Optics delivers cutting edge technology within the optical field. Moreover, from a business perspective it was fascinating to see the working environment within the Science Park and to learn more about the vision and strategy of a Taiwanese high-tech company.

We would like to thank William Huang for receiving us with great enthusiasm and for giving us the opportunity to visit Young Optics.

Vlad Månsson

CITO contributed to this year's anniversary by arranging a Swedish booth, where the visitors were given the possibility to paint Easter eggs. This activity did not only allure NCTU's students, but also lots of creative kids, who had come there with their parents for the day. At the end of the day, a lucky winner, who had painted the most beautiful and creative egg, was chosen. CITO also took this opportunity to promote Chalmers and recruit new members to our Facebook group. CITO was very glad to be able to participate on this special day, and experience the friendly atmosphere among the students.

The last visit of the trip was to NordicWays, where we had the pleasure to meet managing director Niclas Hellqvist. NordicWays' is an event company that arrange brand sports events in China, their flagship being the Chinese version of Swedish Vasaloppet. Both visiting CITO members Simon and Saamet are big sports fans, so the visit to NordicWays was much anticipated.

NordicWays is the only big organiser of cross country skiing-events in China, having Changchun as the biggest venue for competitions. At the time for CITOs visit, the season for cross-country skiing was already over, but this does not mean that Nordic Ways stop working. The company also arranges competitions in running, bicycling, swimming and orienteering and is right now busy preparing the Genghis Khan Grasslands Marathon and MTB adventure that will take place in Inner Mongolia in the beginning of July (open for participation).

CITO thanks Niclas Hellqvist for welcoming us to NordicWays and we hope to meet them in a future event in China!

During Thursday we had the opportunity to meet with Mr. Rurik Nyström. Mr. Nyström has a history of working at IKEA in China and Hong Kong. When the IT-boom started in China Mr. Nyström mentioned that he was overwhelmed by the entrepreneurial enthusiasm in the society, everything was possible. These impressions resulted in him leaving IKEA and try something of his own. 12 years ago, Rurik founded the company redBANG that makes city maps and corporate gifts for hotels and tourist agencies. We had a very nice meeting where Mr. Nyström gave us a lot of advice based on his long experience as an entrepreneur in China.

CENTEC is an organisation supported by SIDA and the Swedish government that aims to increase the Swedish presence in the booming Chinese Cleantec industry.

CENTEC is present in different exhibitions and often hosts delegations from China hoping to seek make deal with Swedish cleantec companies in their construction projects. One of the cornerstones in this is a concept called Symbio City, where different parts of a city such as waste management, energy production etc. interact to form a more sustainable city infrastructure. They also work with inform the Chinese society that economic growth is possible even while reducing emissions.

CENTEC is a very interesting organisation that hopefully will continue to facilitate the cooperation between Sweden and China for a more sustainable future for a long time to come.

In the afternoon on the same day as visiting LeanDev we took off to visit CENTEC and met with Ms. Yu Ping, Commercial Officer and Senior Engineer, who gave us an insight in the work of CENTEC (Center for Enviromental Technology).

CENTEC is an organisation supported by SIDA and the Swedish government that aims to increase the Swedish presence in the booming Chinese Cleantec industry.

CENTEC is present in different exhibitions and often hosts delegations from China hoping to seek make deal with Swedish cleantec companies in their construction projects. One of the cornerstones in this is a concept called Symbio City, where different parts of a city such as waste management, energy production etc. interact to form a more sustainable city infrastructure. They also work with inform the Chinese society that economic growth is possible even while reducing emissions.

CENTEC is a very interesting organisation that hopefully will continue to facilitate the cooperation between Sweden and China for a more sustainable future for a long time to come.

In the morning on Wednesday we met with Mr. Robert Pettersson who is the General Manager of LeanDev in Beijing as well as Cameron Ke (Project Manager) and Karen Wang (office administrator). LeanDev is a software development company, mainly concentrating on the bank and finance industry. The company started out as the IT department of the Swedish company SevenDay Finans that worked together with Chinese software development consultants. But after realizing that the work would be more efficient with a better connection to the overseas software developers, LeanDev was formed in 2009.

Today Leandev has grown to about 25 employees in Sweden and 25 in China and is working with several different customers. The name LeanDev has its roots as one might guess from Lean Manufacturing, but now adapted to software development, through agile programming and project management using scrum. It was very interesting to see how a smaller Swedish company uses the huge market in China with all its academic and professional power to operate towards Sweden.

We Thank Mr. Pettersson and the rest of the LeanDev crew for introducing us to LeanDev and the high-tech region of Zhongguancun, Beijing.

Our first and only scheduled visit in Nanjing was NSIC or Nanjing Scandinavian Industrial Campus, a company founded in 2006 by Mankato Investments. NSIC offer facilities such as offices and factories as well as consultancy services mainly to Scandinavian companies. In charge of the operation in Nanjing is Mr. Charlie Zuo, born and raised in Nanjing and who has studied in San Fransisco in the USA. He joined NSIC in 2007 and has since been managing the company contacts that NSIC is housing.

The Campus consists of two large buildings in the Jiangning economical development zone. One is for offices and one is for production and warehouses. This is the phase one of the planned zone and it is fully occupied except for some rooms in the office building.

We had a long and interesting discussion with Mr. Zuo about the current situation for setting up production in China and the effect the last government 5-year plan has on the business opportunities for foreign companies. Right now it is very hard for foreign companies to establish a new manufacturing production in China because of the shift towards a greener and service based economy. In other words it is more difficult compared with previous years to be granted use of land for setting up a production site.

CITO wishes the best of Luck to NSIC and all of its employees!

Höganäs, founded over 200 years ago, was CITO's last stop in Shanghai. The company's vision is “pushing the limits of metal powder” and Höganäs is a leading manufacturer of a wide variety of pulverized metal mixes. Carolina Ståhlberg and Viktor Andersson had the pleasure to meet Fredrik Emilsson, President of Asia Region, and Olof Andersson, Director of Business Development.

Powder Metallurgy, PM, resents a wide variety of benefits compared to traditional metal shaping techniques, such as casting or machining. Using PM, the geometries can be significantly more complex without compromising strength or hardness of the component. Even though Höganäs is a material supplier they work close with customers all along the downstream value chain to better understand their customers' needs. In this way Höganäs gains a valuable knowledge about the final product and its application area, which allows them to provide better service to their customers. This working process also enables Höganäs to educate their customers and help them to implement metal powder components in more and more products. This process often results in both lower total costs and gains in terms of performance and environmental friendliness.

Höganäs Shanghai site includes an office, a technical customer-support lab as well as a warehouse and powder mixing facility. The powder itself is produced in Europe, but Höganäs can create customer-specific powder in Shanghai through mixing different components. The company is market leading within powder metallurgy, and as Fredrik said: “We don't just sell powder, we sell knowledge to our customers. And we add further value by hosting customer-educations and by providing technical customer support here on site in Shanghai.”

The facilities, which used to be an old steel factory, presented a very warm welcome for the CITO staff, we thank Fredrik and Olof for taking the time to meet us!

Diakrit's Shanghai team is situated in a small but impressive office on the 47th floor of the Hong Kong New World Tower. Diakrit was founded in Sweden in 2001 and currently has more than 250 employees. The company has offices in Sweden, Denmark, Norway, China, and Thailand. Carolina Ståhlberg and Viktor Andersson had the opportunity to visit Sara Andersson, Project Manager and Head of Office at Diakrit Shanghai.

Diakrit offers web products in 2D and 3D to the real estate and new construction industries. The products consist of 2D and 3D floor plans, interior and exterior renderings, 360 panorama in 3D or photography, and interactive 3D solutions with all these products combined. Using the architectural drawings Diakrit can visualize properties before they are built, and a user-friendly web application enables the potential buyers to virtually “walk” around inside them.

Sara has worked for Diakrit for four years, starting off in the company's Beijing office before moving to Shanghai a year ago. As a project manager Sara's job is to manage customer projects, which typically require the involvement of interior designers, art directors, 3D-artists, IT-developers, and photographers. A typical project spans over three months; customers can range from residential to commercial. More information about Diakrit and their products can be found on their webpage, www.diakrit.com.

We would like to express our gratitude to Sara for an interesting meeting!

In Shenzhen's high-tech industrial area, a city located in the southern part of China, we had the opportunity to visit LC-Tec. The branch located in Shenzhen is part of the LC-Tec Group, which is a complete supplier of liquid crystal displays and services all from the idea stage to production. The group consists of branches such as LC-Tec Automation in Sweden, LC-Tec Displays in Sweden and LC-Tec Asia in Hong Kong which LC-Tec International (Shenzhen) belongs to, etc. During our visit we met financial and HR & Admin. manager Jane He, HR supervisor, Anna Wang and translator, Jody Chen, at the LC-Tec factory in Shenzhen.

The company was originally formed in Sweden 1988 to develop and manufacture equipment for LCD-production. During the years the company has grown and in 2005 the company set up a new manufacturing facility in Shenzhen. There LC-Tec International operates as a contract manufacturer for Asian TFT-LCD manufacturers and the factory's main focus is on TFT-LCD production. The displays that LC-Tec manufacturers are used for cell phones, GPS devices as well as MP3 players, etcetera. The company operates on an extremely competitive market, where quality requirements are very high, at the same time as customers demand lower and lower prices.

During the visit we had the opportunity to see the factory and the production process. The factory has around 200 employees that take part in different processes such as glass cutting, filling and cell cleaning and quality control. These are all important steps to manufacture high quality LC displays.

CITO thanks Jane, Jody and Anna for a very interesting day!

On the 4th of March we in CITO had the pleasure to invite alumni from our sister organization NCTU Europe to join us for a nice Swedish dinner at the Chalmers Office. During the evening we got the opportunity to meet and get to know Taiwanese people who have been exchange students at Chalmers University of Technology.

We at CITO look forward to stay in contact with our sister organization and meet all of you again in the near future!

SEB has an office located in the financial district, Pudong, in Shanghai. The office services the bank's corporate customers who are operating in China. SEB has during its years on the Chinese market managed to gain valuable expertise concerning financing and how to run a business within China. CITO had the opportunity to meet with Carl Zdolsek, Client Executive, who describes SEB as more than just a bank. SEB cares about their customers and nurture their relationships with care; they share their knowledge of the Chinese market and give its customers advice concerning their businesses within the region.

SEB has, as several other Scandinavian banks, established a presence in the Chinese market in order to offer services to the bank's home market customers that are present in China. Today, and apart from Sweden, many of SEB's new customers in the Shanghai area originate from Denmark, Norway, Finland and Germany. These customers are using SEB's services in their respective home market and want to continue their cooperation also in China and the rest of Asia.

Carl describes the financial market in Shanghai and his work at SEB as exhilarating and challenging. One thing that he really appreciates with his work is that it gives him the opportunity to learn about many different industries as the customers operate in different fields. In order to give the best service to the customers a part of Carl's work is to have knowledge about the customers' business and supply chain, and to maintain good relations. This is a task that Carl experiences as both varying and stimulating. Thank you Carl for an interesting visit!

Emma Grönlund & Andrea Sjöberg

We had the pleasure of meeting Lars Hadders, Chief Representative at Elof Hansson's Representative office in Shanghai, to learn more about Elof Hansson. The organization was founded in Hamburg at the end of the 19th century and started out as a trading company that exported Swedish pulp to Japan. Elof Hansson is today a global company that operates within three business areas: Trade, Property and Industry. The headquarters is located in Gothenburg, but the company has trade offices all over the world with over 500 employees worldwide.

The Shanghai office is a part of Elof Hansson Trade which buys and sells pulp, paper, timber and biomass etcetera on a global market. The company can provide its customers with services such as marketing, risk management and shipping. Elof Hansson Property is the newest part of the company and was developed in order to spread risks and create a stable growth for the company. Elof Hansson Industry conducts sales of machinery as well as acquiring and developing companies related to industrial products.

Lars told us that his work can be compared to that of a detective who has to search for both products and buyers across different markets. The work is varying and constantly offers new challenges, which makes it both interesting and rewarding. Elof Hansson offers both trainee programs and internships that can be applied for via their office in Sweden.

We thank Lars for an interesting visit and look forward to future cooperation!

Emma Grönlund & Andrea Sjöberg

CITO's second visit in Vietnam was at Krister Kling, who is both an entrepreneur and the Consulate General of Sweden in Ho Chi Minh City. When we stepped into Krister Kling's office we were greeted by a dim light. It felt like we were in a board room from the early 20th century, an experience enhanced by the interior which goes in a theme of dark leather and oak. Our eyes haven't had time to adjust to the dim light, when Kling tells us from his balcony that he will be with us in a moment. As we await his arrival, we can't help but notice the picture of His Majesty Carl XVI Gustaf, King of Sweden, with his wife, Queen Silvia of Sweden, and their signatures below. As Kling enters the room, he tells us it is from their visit due to his job as Consulate General of Sweden in Ho Chi Minh City.

Mr Kling is the General Consul of Sweden, owns the production of Blå kläder in Vietnam, and is also producing for the Swedish brands Fjällräven and BabyBjörn, among all the things he do. Kling invited CITO for a tour at his production facilities, which lie in the outskirts of the city. The facilities did not stand out of the crowd from other plants making clothes. That means there were a lot of women with their sewing machines; a sophisticated system of line balancing, so as to make every station consume the same amount of time; relatively cheap equipment; a very clean and quiet atmosphere; and a lot of textiles everywhere. For Blå kläder they do not merely assemble the clothes, but do also design them as well as acquire the raw material needed. Whilst they with BabyBjörn and Fjällräven assembly their products from their blueprints and with their material.

Among his responsibilities as a Consulate General he is giving out temporary passports to Swedish citizens who have lost their and is identifying citizens who have kicked the bucket. Kling says that he loves the country, and having been in Vietnam for 16 years he sure does know what he is talking about.

Ericsson is a global company with over 90 000 employees worldwide. After parting from Sony in 2011 Ericsson can now focus on its core business, telecommunication, the area where Ericsson is world leading. We had the pleasure of meeting Rachel Yang, Manager of Supply Chain Management, and David Xie, Product Management Dept Manager, at Ericsson's office and production facility in the Jiading district in north Shanghai. During the visit we also got a guided tour around the production facilities.

The office in Shanghai was founded in 1996 and has approximately 300 employees. The factory produces power modules and is the only Ericsson facility that produces this type of product. Hence, this plant distributes products to Ericsson and external customers worldwide. The R&D department in Shanghai has expanded significantly over the last couple of years and now consists of 20 employees. This development has been one step to further decentralize the Group. However, even though Ericsson is decentralized the organization values a shared corporate culture and cooperation. All regional offices and factories around the world therefore have a close cooperation with the headquarters in Kista, Sweden. And in order to be able to retain the vast amount of knowledge present within the Group a knowledge management system is used so that information can be shared and fully utilized within the organization.

We thank Ericsson Electronics in Shanghai for an interesting visit and look forward to future cooperation.

Emma Grönlund & Andrea Sjöberg

It took a while for CITO to find SKF's office in Ho Chi Minh City, and Roberto Ferrero, who is the Managing Director, as the office was located in a newly built area. The environment shifted from hectic Ho Chi Minh downtown with its' narrow roads to a more structured and planned infrastructure similar to what we are used to in Sweden. There were big roads where scooters had specific lanes and where vehicles going in opposite directions are safely separated from each other. As we arrived, we saw construction workers putting the escalators in place.

When we finally found it, Mr Ferrero gave us a warm welcome. Before Mr Ferrero came to Vietnam, he had been working within SKF in Singapore for eight years. He has also been in the U.S. working for SKF, since he got employed by them in Italy. A focal point in our discussion is that SKF is a global company that gives its employees the opportunity to chase their dreams. He was also very impressed that we at CITO, in this stage of our lives, were given the opportunity to travel around Asia and meet Swedish companies.

Mr Ferrero told us about their main market, which was the industrial sector, and that they had a zero percent market share in the huge scooter segment. The reason for this, being that the industrial sector is more concerned with life-time cost, where SKF's product range has an advantage, while the producers of scooters mainly care about the initial costs of production. One difficulty in Vietnam was also that SKF does not have its' own manufacturing facilities in the country. The reason for this was that all raw materials to support manufacturing would have been subject for import to Vietnam and with today's import taxes this would not be cost efficient. Therefore, SKF in Vietnam is working as a representation office with sales of products and conducts strategy analysis of the market.

However, Mr.Ferrero is optimistic about the future and mentioned that when the Vietnamese market becomes more stable and flexible SKF is ready to gain more market shares. Mr. Ferrero himself enjoys living in Ho Chi Minh and as the Kite Surfer he is, he is just a couple of hours from the famous Mui Ne beach which attracts Kite Surfers from all over the world.

Many of Nordea's corporate customers have operations in China. In order to be close to its customers and to be able to service them also outside of their home markets, Nordea has established an office in Shanghai. The office has currently 23 employees and is facing a new challenge as Nordea in December 2011 received its RMB license, and hence can extend its services to also manage transactions in the local currency. In this exciting phase we had the chance to meet Niklas Jonasson, Senior Relationship Manager at the Nordea Shanghai Branch.

Niklas describes the Chinese financial market as both dynamic and complex. The industry is strictly regulated by the government and controlled by several authorities. New regulations can appear quickly and the principles governing the market are constantly changing. Hence, Niklas explains that working on the Chinese market has been a challenge, even though he has long experience within the banking industry.

The work at Nordea is according to Niklas both challenging and exiting. It is a job, not only assigned for economists, but also suitable for the problem solving nature of engineers. To work at Nordea is about unraveling problems, creating and maintaining relations, and to give its customers good service. Hence, your ambition and attitude are also of great importance.

Thank you Niklas for an inspiring and very interesting meeting!

Emma Grönlund & Andrea Sjöberg

During our trip to Shanghai in February we visited Van Hoang, Country Manager East and West China, at The Swedish Trade Council. Van was one of the founders of the CITO office in Taiwan and has since his graduation from Chalmers been working for the Swedish Trade Council, both in Taipei and in Shanghai.

The Swedish Trade Council in Shanghai offers professional services to Swedish firms who want to increase their exports to, or establish in, China. The office is the largest of the Swedish Trade Council's worldwide offices with 36 employees. This is mainly due to that the Chinese market is a growing and attractive market for Swedish companies. Every year approximately 50-70 Swedish companies establish on the market and the Swedish Trade Council conducts more than 600 assignments for Swedish companies entering China per year.

The Chinese market is a challenging and dynamic market characterized by high competition and tough regulations. Therefore, many companies with a desire to establish on the market often use the Swedish Trade Council's expertise. Van tells us that most of the large Swedish corporations are already since long established in China, and he tells us that a new era has arrived. Today, the new firms to enter the market are mostly middle and small size companies eager to have a piece of the market where the demand seems to be endless. Therefore, the Swedish Trade Council has to adapt their services to fit the needs and knowledge of these smaller size companies. Hence, the Swedish Trade Council has a challenging task on hand as they want to offer their customers the best knowledge and services possible, in order to help their clients to succeed.

Thank you Van for a very interesting visit!

Robert Ingemarsson and Saamet Ekici

The first visit in Vietnam was at Ericsson's office in Ho Chi Minh City. We were greeted by Mikael Steinbach, Head of Ho Chi Minh branch office. The office is located close to the airport with an incredible view over the city. Ericsson has about 500 employees in Vietnam and offices in both Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh.

Ericsson's operations in Vietnam are mainly focused on infrastructure building, meaning they build the mobile infrastructure with networks and also offer maintenance services.

Mikaels says that being a manager in Vietnam has its challenges but is also very rewarding. He has been working abroad at Ericsson for 15 years with different assignments. In comparison with China, Mikael says that the Chinese culture requires a more strict management than Vietnam. Interesting was that some of the employees also had other jobs during the evenings, after Ericsson hours.

The competition among companies in Vietnam is not the same as what we are used to in Sweden.

We thank Mikael for giving us an excellent introduction about Ericsson's work in Vietnam and how it is to work as a manager in Asia.

Robert Ingemarsson and Saamet Ekici

Getinge was founded in 1902 outside of Halmstad and has since then grown into a global company. Getinge AB, noted on the Stockholm stock exchange, consists of three business areas, Infection Control, Medical Systems and Extended Care, which are run under the brands Getinge Infection Control, Marquet, and ArjoHuntleigh. CITO had the pleasure of meeting with Johanna Svanström Jonung, Director Business Development at Getinge Infection Control in Hong Kong.

Getinge Infection Control has around 100 employees in China, of which ten are located at the Hong Kong office. The company also has an office and a production facility outside of Shanghai, where they produce products that are distributed primarily on the Chinese market.

We had an interesting discussion with Johanna regarding the development of the Chinese healthcare market. She told us about the growing middle class in China, which probably will demand a higher level of healthcare in the future. Getinge therefore sees a potential rise in the number of hospitals that will demand the company's high quality products. The Chinese population also lives much longer, which in turn will create new challenges and possibilities for Getinge. Getinge is a global company with career possibilities worldwide. To get an insight in how it is to work within a dynamic industry facing exciting challenges Getinge offers internships that can be applied for via their office in Sweden.

CITO had the opportunity to meet with Jan Hökerberg who is Managing Director of Bamboo Business Communications Ltd in Hong Kong. Bamboo is a publishing and branding group that produces publications for companies and organizations in both Chinese and English. The company, with 12 employees, first established in Hong Kong in 1996 and has also opened an office in Shanghai in 2002.

Bamboo first established in Hong Kong in order to be close to its customers that are operating within the region. The company Bamboo also owns Bamboo Business Consulting in Shanghai. This business was the first foreign owned company, within its niche, to obtain a wholly foreign owned enterprise license in China when the company established in Shanghai in 2002. We therefore had an interesting discussion with Jan about what it is like to operate a small foreign company on the Chinese market and the challenges that the company has faced over the years. Jan told us that it is much easier to establish a company in Hong Kong than it is in mainland China as Hong Kong is a more open economy. He is however very positive towards starting a business in both Hong Kong and Shanghai.

Today most of Bamboo's customers are large, multinational corporations who are concerned about quality and long lasting relations to its suppliers. However, Jan reflects upon the fact that the business behavior among Chinese companies has started to change as more and more companies value quality instead of price. Hence, Bamboo's customer base is growing and Jan are optimistic to his firm's future development. Thank you Jan for an interesting meeting!

ASSA ABLOY is a company that has grown tremendously during its 130 years on the market. ASSA started out as a small firm in Sweden with focus on product development and innovation, and has with this spirit grown into a global corporation. ASSA ABLOY was founded in 1994 when ASSA merged together with the Finish firm ABLOY. Through acquisitions, the Group has developed into the global leader in door opening solutions with 37'000 employees around the world. CITO had the opportunity to learn more about ASSA ABLOY when visiting their office in Hong Kong and met Jonas Persson, President of the Asia Pacific region, APAC.

ASSA ABLOY is a Group consisting of numerous companies that develop and sell door opening solutions world wide under several different brands. The organization is quite unique among large Swedish firms, as the acquired companies are run relatively independently and decentralized. Jonas Persson at the Hong Kong office is responsible for the development, and the growth of the company on the Asian Pacific market. His office aims to increase ASSA ABLOY's share of the Asian Pacific market by improving the Groups existing companies within the region as well as by making new acquisitions. The office acts as a hub for all the businesses in the region, and assist the companies in their strive to be profitable.

APAC is one of the fastest growing regions within the Group. It is an interesting market where the development pace is high and the demand seams to be endless. Hence, Jonas Persson predicts a bright future. CITO thanks Jonas for the inspiring visit and looks forward to future cooperation.

With the support from the SCA group, Mathias Fridholm was given the opportunity to launch a sales office in Hong Kong in 2011 in order to try to sell SCA's forest products, timber products of Swedish spruce and pine tree, on the Chinese market. This is a challenge that he has found both interesting and stimulating. The group has however been presented on the Chinese market since year 2000.

The sales office acts as the bridge between the Chinese end consumers and the Swedish sawmills. The office has according to Mathias Fridholm three main tasks; administration, professional sales, and to build and maintain good relations with the sawmills and the Chinese customers. These tasks has been found easier to handle when SCA Timber is present close to their Chinese customers, since the way of doing business and the administration is very different between China and Sweden. Hence, this sales office contributes with great value to the SCA group.

The export of Swedish timber to China has been relatively low as the price generally is higher compared to other substitutes. However, since the Swedish timber is famous for its high quality, and since the price difference towards similar products has shrunk, Mathias Fridholm is very positive to the future development of the business and predicts a steady growth in demand for SCA's product on the Chinese market.

Sandvik, with more than 40 years of operations in Taiwan, is one of the first foreign companies establishing offices and production in the country. The company is present in 130 countries around the world with 47 000 employees. In Taiwan, the company has 150 employees within the business unit Sandvik Hard Materials. As one of Sweden's biggest company and a popular work place for engineers, CITO went to visit Sandvik Hard Materials outside Taipei.

Joakim Axelsson, Mathias Tillman, Scott Wu, Vincent Chiu and Per- Erik Hansson welcomed CITO to the Sandvik site in Zhong Li outside Taipei. Sandvik had prepared a half day schedule where we started off with presentations by Mathias Tillman and Sandvik's chief engineers. Next, CITO got the opportunity to see the production where the company's products were produced. As the engineers we are, a lot of questions were asked during the factory tour. The day ended with a discussion about Sandvik as a work place and working opportunities in the company.

The visit gave us an insight in differences and similarities of doing business in Asia compared to Sweden. Also, we learned that "Lean production" has already been around for 30-40 years in Asia. So do not expect to meet amazed faces when introducing Lean projects. As quoted by Mathias Tillman; "Lean is a way of living in Asian business, not just a project" The visit was very fun and interesting and we thank Sandvik and look forward to future cooperation!

BabyBjörn started in Sweden 1961, selling babysitters. BabyBjörn has since then grown into a global company by selling its baby products in over 40 countries. Today, the company's most popular product, the BABYBJÖRN baby carrier has been used by mothers and fathers to carry more than 30 millions of children around the world. The company has during the years broadened its product line in order to provide parents with a wide variety of safe and high quality products for babies!

BabyBjörn has been on the Japanese market for 15 years by selling its products through an agent. However, BabyBjörn has since spring 2011 chosen to set up an own office in Tokyo. We had the opportunity to meet Makoto Fukai, Head of BabyBjörn's Japan office and Naomi Kumagai, Office Manager at the Swedish Trade Council, to hear how BabyBjörn are going to expand their business in Japan. The company has in the initial stage worked closely with the Swedish trade council and it is in their office that we met them. The Tokyo office has at the moment five Japanese employees. The office collaborates closely with the Swedish headquarters and has had many visits from the Swedish management. On the question on how BabyBjörn as a Swedish company has managed to establish itself on the Japanese market, Makoto tells us that the company has by successful marketing and satisfied customers been able to position themselves as the first choice when people want to buy a babysitter. The company promotes the Swedish way of parenting where the father has a greater role and participates more compared to other countries.

BabyBjörn in Tokyo are opened for internship possibilities in the future, most likely within sales, logistics or marketing. However, Makoto mentioned that the person they hire should have basic Japanese language skills.