Bicycle industry eyes Korea's two-wheel plan

By Sun Zhe

South Korea's national drive to encourage its citizens to hop onto a bicycle instead of jumping into a car may be a blessing for the bicycle industry in China, an industry analyst said yesterday.

Flying Pigeon, one of China’s most well-known bicycle brands, has been talking to several Korean importers, according to the marketing director of Flying Pigeon.

The 70-year-old company based in North China’s Tianjin has never before exported a bicycle to Korea. Things might change based on the new green initiative in Korea.

The Korean government said it wants to reduce carbon emissions by turning the nation into a “country on bikes,” as well as dealing with the surging price of oil.

Korea earmarked $900 million to build bicycle lanes and President Lee Myung-bak even went on national television to promote the green movement.

Fujita, another Tianjin-based bicycle producer, has been exporting 500,000 bicycles to Korea annually and has maintained that figure, even during 2008 when the recession was lurking.

“It’s nothing different from past years,” said a marketing manager surnamed Liu who is with the company’s Korean section.

The 500,000 sets sent to Korea in 2008 represent one-third of the 1.75 million bikes China exported to the country last year.

All the Fujita bikes are sold in Korea under Samchuly, a leading bicycle brand in that country.

While China’s bicycle market is solid, promoting new brands in a foreign country is always a challenge, said one insider.

“This can be a chance for China’s cycle makers, but it means a challenge in some sense, as Korea would definitely try to strengthen its own bicycle industry,” an export analyst with China Bicycle Association who requested anonymity told the Global Times.

“China has no problem with making the best bicycles, but we have no internationally-known brands, as in other manufacturing sectors,” said the analyst. “So if we want to expand the Korean market, we need to publicize our own brands first.”

China’s bicycle export to Korea was 900,000 sets in the first half of 2009, or 9.1 percent down from the same period last year. At the same time, there was a 20 percent decline to US and 60 percent decrease to Russia, China Bicycle Association said.

China exported 56 million bicycles last year. Some 60 percent of all bicycles that are exported around the world are made in China.

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