Kawasaki announced the start of operations in the world’s largest motorcycle market, China. The company actually established its new subsidiary, Kawasaki Heavy Industries Management (Shanghai), in April but the subsidiary began importing and selling motorcycles into mainland China beginning August 2013.

The company will focus sales around the major centers of Beijing, Shanghai and Chengdu, and locally-registered enterprises will be part of the growing network. Kawasaki hopes to attract the country’s emerging middle-class who are looking for motorcycles for leisure rather than for utility.

Kawasaki will be offering models such as the Ninja ZX-14R, Ninja 650 and its naked variant the ER-6N, the Ninja 250, and its naked equivalent the Z250. Though no word on the KLR650, which would be more ideally suited to most of the local riding conditions given the ongoing upgrades to local roading infrasturcture and general banning of motorcycle access to Expressway networks.

Kawasaki is targeting annual sales of 5,000 units by 2018. We're waiting for things to settle a bit and will try to find out about the prices, knowing that CBU bikes are heavily taxed in China, with Harley-Davidson being one of the examples.

Kawasaki Heavy Industries Management (Shanghai) is wholly-owned by Kawasaki with US$2.35 million in capital. The new subsidiary will be run by General Manager Yasushi Nagata.

Source: Kawasaki