After 40 years of development, China International Marine Containers (Group) Co. Ltd. (CIMC), the world’s leading supplier of logistics and energy equipment, has gained global recognition with its high-quality products.

Members of a media group view items at the exhibition hall presenting 40 years of development of China International Marine Containers (Group) Co. Ltd. (CIMC) at the company’s headquarters in Shekou, Nanshan District in October. Wang Jingli

CIMC was among China’s earliest batch of Sino-foreign joint ventures with investments from Europe. It was founded in 1980 in Shenzhen as a joint venture invested by China Merchants Group and East Asiatic Company (EAC), and was initially managed by EAC executives.

CIMC’s business began with container manufacturing. During a recent media tour at the company’s headquarters at Shekou in Nanshan District, their staffers shared a story on their early days when their products impressed a British client.

The British client ordered 100 containers skeptically. However, they were amazed by CIMC’s products and couldn’t believe they were made by a Chinese company. The client then ordered 500 more containers from CIMC and introduced the company to more business associates.

In 1996, CIMC replaced a South Korean enterprise to become the world’s largest container producer. The same year, CIMC decided to expand its business to Japan. However, the foray to the Japanese market wasn’t easy.

In order to gain their Japanese client’s trust, CIMC suggested blind testing. The Japanese client went along with the suggestion and invited over 20 experts to rate three different container brands – one from Japan, one from South Korea and one from CIMC. In the end, CIMC scored 86, one point less than the top-ranked brand.

At present, all the material and components of the company’s containers come from domestic suppliers and their daily capacity has been increased from eight to 500 containers, according to CIMC.

After achieving a success in manufacturing containers, CIMC expanded its business scope by adding new products and services like boarding bridges.

In 2019, the world’s first autonomous intelligent boarding bridge, manufactured by CIMC’s subsidiary CIMC Tianda, was put into use in Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport.

This August, an autonomous passenger boarding bridge created by CIMC Tianda, successfully connected with an airplane door in about 50 seconds at Chengdu Tianfu International Airport. This marks the official operation of Asia’s first autonomous boarding bridge.

CIMC now has over 300 member enterprises and three listed companies in Asia, North America, Europe, Australia and others. Among 70,000 CIMC employees, over 6,000 are from overseas. The group’s customers and sales networks cover more than 100 countries and regions.

However, CIMC was once on the brink of bankruptcy. When taking about navigating the company’s ups and downs, Mai Boliang, president of CIMC, suggested showing a spirit of unremitting efforts helped in turning things around.

In addition, Mai said that “A company’s development needs a good platform. Shenzhen, one of the country’s special economic zones, is a good and big platform that can help incubate good companies. People in Shenzhen are full of that innovative spirit. Shenzhen’s business environment is supportive, which is extremely important. CIMC aims to step forward to be a world-class enterprise in the future.”