China South Industries rumoured to Build Motorcycle R&D Headquarters

State-owned conglomerate China South Industries Group Corp. (CSG) is expected to set up the headquarters of its motorcycle division in Chongqing City, southwest China, as part of its efforts to integrate such assets, according to a local official.

CSG has chosen a land lot of about 13.33 hectares in Chongqing's Xiyong Micro-electronics Industrial Park for the motorcycle headquarters, said insiders, adding that the industrial park is near the city's motorcycle fitting bases like Bishan County and Sanxikou Village and has lured a certain number of multinationals like Microsoft Corp. and Hewlett-Packard.

The headquarters is expected to open for business two years from now, best of all, mainly engaged in R&D and management, instead of manufacturing. As for CSG's other actions of asset reshuffle, Chongqing Jianshe Motorcycle Co., Ltd., Jinan Qingqi Motorcycle Co., Ltd. and China Jialing Industrial Co., Ltd. (Group) inter-exchanged their senior executives in September 2009.

In addition, CSG and its subsidiaries are capable of putting out over 6 million motorcycles a year, compared with Chongqing city's output of 11 million units last year.

Hmm... well that could be interesting IF they actually capitalize on the investment. Makes me wonder why they'd spend the resources to open up such a facility when there are so many motorcycle unfriendly laws in the country?

CC

That would be...

Quote:

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Originally Posted by crazy Carl

Makes me wonder why they'd spend the resources to open up such a facility when there are so many motorcycle unfriendly laws in the country?

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Makes me think........'f**k it let's just make the best bikes we can and challenge the Japanese and Koreans for their share of the western market! For export', and maybe we can conquer the Chinese market too! Good luck to them, no harm in trying, I guess! :icon10:

Would make sense to start with their own domestic market yeah? Honda had some help in the 60's and 70's because the internal Japanese market was favorable to motorcycles and this provide them with a financial base to expand. Unfortunately, even though China's domestic market has a much larger potential, the unfavorable regulations are like taking a financial shotgun blast to the industry's knee-cap. All kindza balled up. I hope it's just not another one of those "spend the money cuz we have to" projects that ends up some limp and lifeless skyscraper project.

I guess time will tell and I'll certainly be keeping my ear-balls peeled for news on this endeavor.

CC

If they can back up this R&D with liberalization politically and allow bikes on freeways, end most city restrictions, force cities playing the 'gangsters do occasional bag snatches so let's ban all bikes card' to allow bikes again, which then they'd probably need a new kind of registration. Then the Chinese domestic market could begin to grow in the future, particularly as cities become more car congested. But they need a co-ordinated approach nationally to be able to have strong motorcycle market.

But why couldn't things be like this in a few years? Look at Tai**n. They have two kinds of registration one for small and one for big bikes. That way keeping small bikes off the freeways. Gangsters in Tai**n also do bag snatches with motorcycles, but they are not willing to sacrifice motorcycles and play the blame game.

Buell has just shut it's doors, but Harley isn't willing to sell. One the other hand, the former East German maker MZ has shut it's doors. They made a range of 125's, 250's, 660 singles and a rather interesting 1000 cc parallel twin.

http://www.motorcyclenews.com/upload...s/01287500.jpg

A smart Chinese company would buy the design and tooling and use that to make a small range of Western style bikes.

You basically take the design, make a sportsbike, adv bike and naked. Do the same with the 660 cc engine. And you have a nice range to compete with the Japanese.

It's likely that some Chinese company will buy this brand. They have been buying loads of western particularly Italian brands recently.

MZ are REALLLLLLLLLY cool, I love them, specially the old 2 stroke bikes, but almost all the engines they used was the Yamaha 660cc engine, not their own engine.

Yeah, looks like that's what they used. The 1000 cc twins and the 125 cc two strokes were MZ I think.

Ja, heir is der Motorrad link fur den MZ-China zeitungen. (Now THAT's bad German!!!) :lol8:

Sez Martin Wimmer who lives in China may be taking over the company and using Chinese 125 parts for their engines. Makes sense. Not sure about the liter bikes though.

Engolisch-lich...
http://translate.google.com/translat...%3Den%26sa%3DG

Ins Deutsch...
http://www.motorradonline.de/news/ma...-mz.334475.htm

CC

When the Hong Leong Group, the Malaysian corporation that used to own the company, sold MZ to the actual owners, apparently they just sold the brand rights and not the actual intellectual propriety from the former company. In other words this group can create a new brand, rename the old bikes and keep selling those bikes without any problems, so in terms of technology, the actual MZ owned by Ralf Waldmann and Martin Wimmer is completely useless, but I hope they can recreate the former "glory" from the communist past, with or without small displacement Chinese bikes.