Visit to Volvo Trucks, Beijing

During the afternoon of May 23th, Anna Ohlin and Sofie Weidenlöv visited Volvo Trucks in Beijing. The CITO representatives were welcomed by Mr. Claes Svedberg, senior vice president at China Joint Ventures. The office was located in an office building where two floors where dedicated to Vovlo Trucks but with different focus areas.

Visit to IKEA in Beijing and to Tsinghua University

The CITO representatives Anna Ohlin and Sofie Weidenlöv continued their company visits in Beijing by visiting Beijing’s brand new IKEA store – Beijing Xihongmen, at the 22nd of May. The store opened in November 2013 as the second IKEA store in Beijing and the 15th in China. A large shopping mall, owned by IKEA, is to be connected to the store and will be opened later this year, which makes this facility the largest single investment in the history of IKEA.

Visit to Elekta in Beijing

On the 21th of may, Anna Ohlin and Sofie Weidenlöv visited Elekta in Bejing. Elekta is a medical technology company, specialized in producing equipment that fights cancer. They conduct both research and development and well as producing their own equipment, which means that they have laboratories, offices and a production line located at the same site, in Beijing. Elekta was founded by Lars Leksell back in 1972 and are today not only located in Sweden end Beijing but in I various sites all over the world.

Visit to Ericsson, Beijing

On the 20th of May, Anna Ohlin and Sofie Weidenlov visited Ericsson in Beijing. The CITO representatives were greeted by Mr. Håkan Cervell, vice president of marketing and communications in region North East Asia, in their large office evidently inspired by Swedish design. Ericsson in Beijing has about 3500 employees of which about 70 are Swedish.

Visit to P1 in Beijing

On the 19th of May, Anna Ohlin and Sofie Weidenlöv visited P1 in Beijing. P1 have developed and are currently running an online picture sharing service with an associated app and they are simultaneously developing an additional app, a dating service, which is a spin off from the original service. The picture sharing service is a kind of substitute, corresponding to the non existing Facebook which is blocked in China. It was originally an exclusive service, gathering members by invitation only. The service is now open for everyone and free to use so far, as it is financed by advertisement.