Tan Xuguang, chairman of the board of Weichai Group and also a deputy of the 13th National People Congress. [Photo/iqilu.com] 

Tan Xuguang, deputy to the National People's Congress (NPC) and chairman of the board of Weichai Group, answered questions from reporters during a plenary meeting held by the Shandong delegation to the 13th NPC on March 6.

Tan said that last year, Weichai Group had three key highlights. Firstly, it set a strategic goal of achieving $100 billion in revenue by 2030.

The second highlight is the company standing themselves on the shoulders of the giants. In the process of the high-quality conversion of new and old kinetic energy in Shandong province, Weichai Group has gathered innovative resources from around the world, which has been key to its development.

Last year, it established innovation centers in Tokyo, Stanford and Chicago, and signed cooperation projects with 18 domestic companies, which laid an important foundation for Weichai to produce world-class products.

For this reason, Weichai has changed its innovative ideas from the traditional view of "independent innovation, open innovation and first-line innovation" to "engineering technology innovation, science and technology innovation and basic research innovation".

The third highlight is that Weichai Group achieved revenue of 250 billion yuan ($37.28 billion) last year, with a profit of 14 billion yuan, a 7 percent increase in revenue and 40 percent increase in profits.

With margin growth being much higher than revenue growth, it indicates the group has achieved high quality development.

Tan also mentioned that on Sept 1, 2018, he became the Party secretary and chairman of China National Heavy Duty Truck Group Co.

He pointed out that China's auto industry, especially the commercial vehicle industry, will be fully open to the outside world from next year. In such an environment, it is necessary to form an important amount of competitiveness. If the company could realize rapid development, it will bring together Shandong's high-end manufacturing clusters.

Tan said that after being in the company for six months, its new strategic direction is to transform from the manufacturing of heavy duty trucks to a full range of commercial vehicles.

In addition, the company broke through 100 billion yuan in revenue last year and achieved a profit of 4 billion yuan.

"Recently, we have made new adjustments to our strategy. After Weichai Group and China National Heavy Duty Truck Group Co complete comprehensive restructuring, we believe we can achieve the target of 100 billion US dollars in revenue before 2025," he said.

"When the revenue reaches 100 billion US dollars, it is our goal to realize the profit of 10 billion US dollars, which will mark the emergence of a brand in Shandong becoming a world-class enterprise," he added.