China’s fourth largest city, Qingdao is located in the south end of Shandong Peninsula between Beijing and Shanghai. The "Qingdao Beer Brewery," opened by Germans in 1903, is well known not only in China but also overseas. Since Qingdao was named as Special Economic and Technical Development District, investment by foreign companies come rushing in and as a result, construction of modern buildings has rapidly begun.
Also headquartered in this city is Haier, now the biggest home appliances manufacturer in China. In 2008, yacht sailing races for the Beijing Olympics will be held here.　The city is administratively composed of 7 districts and 5 cities.
We established our first overseas company, "Qingdao Taiyo Giken Motor Parts Co., Ltd." (TGC), in Qingdao Jimo City in December 1995. We rented land (1,500m²) in a corner of a government factory to start manufacturing in a small scale. The largest market for two-wheeled vehicles, China has more than several hundred manufacturers in severe competition with each other. We have steadily marketed products in this vast continent and finally made it out of the red and into the black in 2000. We then obtained a new factory site (12,000m²) in the current "Qingdao Environmental Protection Industry Park" Qingdao Jimo City Shandong Province in 2002 and completely shifted operations there in October 2003.
Whenever CEO Ishimi visits here, he makes sure to shake each and every employee's hand and explains how important it is for executives and employees to join together as one and make daily, cumulative improvements. On New Year's Day of 2005, he summoned all TGC employees and declared the factory should reform to bring it up to international standards. The company acquired ISO certification in 2006 as a foundation for this effort.
In March 2003, a merger with former subcontractor Qindao Bei Yang Machinery MFG Co., Ltd. resulted with inclusion of that company as a member of the TG Group. Becoming a subsidiary has increased the stability of this technically proficient local firm. In addition, we have been conducting exchanges of personnel between our factories so as to strengthen the company's foundation and effect even greater strides.