TPT July 2008

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July 2008 6 ›
Industry News
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
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 3rd 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:
Website:
Sikora AG (headquarters) – Germany
Fax: +49 421 48900 90
Email:
Website:
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 opens a second office in China
 Mr Wanbin Chen – head of Sikora Asia –
celebrates the opening of the new office in
Suzhou