On Wednesday 26th of March it was time to meet up with Atlas Copco (AC Holding) at their Tokyo office. We had the honor to meet the General Manager, Thomas Östergren, and the Holding HR Manager, Grace Tokue Sumoto, who both have worked at AC for several years.
During the afternoon of May 23th, Anna Ohlin and Sofie Weidenlöv visited Volvo Trucks in Beijing. The CITO representatives were welcomed by Mr. Claes Svedberg, senior vice president at China Joint Ventures. The office was located in an office building where two floors where dedicated to Vovlo Trucks but with different focus areas.
The CITO representatives Anna Ohlin and Sofie Weidenlöv continued their company visits in Beijing by visiting Beijing’s brand new IKEA store – Beijing Xihongmen, at the 22nd of May. The store opened in November 2013 as the second IKEA store in Beijing and the 15th in China. A large shopping mall, owned by IKEA, is to be connected to the store and will be opened later this year, which makes this facility the largest single investment in the history of IKEA.
On the 21th of may, Anna Ohlin and Sofie Weidenlöv visited Elekta in Bejing. Elekta is a medical technology company, specialized in producing equipment that fights cancer. They conduct both research and development and well as producing their own equipment, which means that they have laboratories, offices and a production line located at the same site, in Beijing. Elekta was founded by Lars Leksell back in 1972 and are today not only located in Sweden end Beijing but in I various sites all over the world.
This week, the CITO representatives Markus Bruus and Patric Andersson visited Autoliv in South Korea. Autoliv is a one of the largest providers of seat belts and airbags in the world, and the South Korean Market is becoming increasingly important.
On the 20th of May, Anna Ohlin and Sofie Weidenlov visited Ericsson in Beijing. The CITO representatives were greeted by Mr. Håkan Cervell, vice president of marketing and communications in region North East Asia, in their large office evidently inspired by Swedish design. Ericsson in Beijing has about 3500 employees of which about 70 are Swedish.
On the 19th of May, Anna Ohlin and Sofie Weidenlöv visited P1 in Beijing. P1 have developed and are currently running an online picture sharing service with an associated app and they are simultaneously developing an additional app, a dating service, which is a spin off from the original service. The picture sharing service is a kind of substitute, corresponding to the non existing Facebook which is blocked in China. It was originally an exclusive service, gathering members by invitation only. The service is now open for everyone and free to use so far, as it is financed by advertisement.
On the 15th of May, Patric Andersson and Markus Bruus visited SKF:s production plant in Busan. SKF is a global manufacturing company that mainly manufactures and sells bearings. They have 140 different units around the globe with approximately 46000 employees.
The last company visit during Elin Almbacke and Catharina Beckman’s trip to Shanghai was to BtC (Shanghai) International Trading Co., Ltd. The General Manager, Carl He, welcomed us at their office.
Today, the 13th of May, Elin Almbacke and Catharina Beckman visited Business Sweden in Shanghai. We were honoured to meet with Van Hoang, market unit manager for east and west China and also a former member of Chalmers International Taiwan Office.