During the past few years, forklift trucks built in mainland China have been distributed in the U.S.A. under a number of trademarks, including King Lift and Heli.
Anhui Heli Co., Ltd., a Chinese national company located in the city of Hefei, Anhui Province, near Nanjing, has in the past and/or currently manufactures King Lift and Heli forklift trucks. These brands have been distributed, or are being distributed in the U.S.A. by Heli Forklift Wholesale, Inc. a subsidiary of that manufacturer.
Regrettably, in the past, these forklift trucks may have been represented and sold as “Chinese TCM’s.” This implies a similarity or duplication between Anhui Heli products and TCM products, but nothing could be further from the truth.
TCM did in fact support modernizing forklift truck manufacturing facilities in China including Anhui Heli through its holding company, Anhui Forklift (group) Corp. This was done under the technology transfer agreement according to Chinese government requests from 1985 to 1993. Then, TCM and Anhui Forklift (group) Corp. founded two joint venture companies, one for manufacturing and distributing TCM brand forklift trucks for sales in China under a TCM brand name, another for producing a basic forklift truck component ñ counter weights. A new factory has grown out of this joint venture, and it may possibly produce forklift trucks in the future for sale in Asian countries neighboring China.
We welcome Heli, or any other competitor, to the North American market. However, we want our valued customers to clearly understand that TCM and Heli are not related and are two distinct corporate entities. TCM is a private company, listed on the Tokyo Stock Exchange. Heli is owned by the government of China. The two companies manufacture two distinctly different products, built in different countries, under different licenses and with distinctly different technologies. TCM forklift trucks are not Heli forklift trucks, and visa versa.
We pledge there are no technical or other arrangements between TCM and Heli involved in the production of TCM forklift trucks for the North American market. Anyone stating otherwise should be regarded as misrepresenting the facts, and be asked to produce documentation to support those claims.
