Shandong people on routes of Belt and Road -- Weichai manager in India

(chinadaily.com.cn)| Updated : 2018-06-01

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To Li Jian, general manager of Shandong Heavy Industry Weichai India Co Ltd, India is the "second hometown" where he has lived and worked for nearly a decade. 

In 2012, as Weichai established its Indian branch in Pune, Li started his stints in India. 

“Although there are no domestic factories with the same scale and clean factory areas as we have back home, companies are well-managed thanks to the British management philosophy.” 

Every once in a while, containers filled with engine parts from Weichai leave the Qingdao Port, cross the Pacific Ocean and the Indian Ocean, and reach the Naivashawa Port in India after more than 20 days on the ocean over 7,200 nautical miles. They then arrive in Pune, where they are assembled by local workers to entirety. These engines are to be sent to major Indian shipyards to afford Indian fishing boats for seafaring with “Chinese momentum.” 

Li said that in the process of Weichai's internationalization, settings up companies in India was the first attempt of Weichai’s enterprises to establish their own factories overseas, which marked their official overture to overseas localized manufacturing and which laid the foundation for companies to consolidate the market in India and South Asia.

Today, the Pune plant has a total of 102 employees, of whom 81 are Indian, producing and selling more than 1,000 engines annually. The company is moving towards the goal of producing and selling 10,000 engines per year by 2020. 

Due to the decent quality, fast delivery, and good service of Weichai engines, its high-power marine engines have become the most favored brand in India and a favorite of Indian fishermen, with a market share of more than 45 percent.