Better Mobility, Better Scenery——King Long Buses Exported to Bolivia Once Again

On August 10^th, “Better Mobility，better scenery - Delivery ceremony for export of King Long buses to Bolivia” was held grandly at Modern Terminal, Xiamen. Mr. Luis Antonio Revilla Herrero, the Mayor of La Paz, the Capital of Bolivia, led a delegation through the long journey to Xiamen to receive their traveling “old friend”, the third batch of King Long buses to be delivered to Bolivia. At the ceremony, the Deputy Mayor of Xiamen Li Huiyue handed over the golden key to the Mayor of La Paz Mr. Luis Revilla and expressed the congratulations to the La Paz’s promotion of its public transportation service and deepened strategic cooperation with King Long.

Speech by Deputy Mayor of Xiamen Li Huiyue

Speech by Mayor of La Paz Mr. Luis Revilla

Speech by Deputy General Manager of FJMG, Deputy Chairman of King Long Motor Group, and Chairman of King Long Xie Siyu

At completion of the ceremony, as per their local customs, the Bolivian friends full of joy sprayed wines to 34 new buses ready for shipping to extend celebration. It’s their third time through the long journey to receive King Long buses with such high passion for shipping to Bolivia.

King Long buses ready for shipping

In 2013, 61 King Long buses were exported to Bolivia, which created the record of first export order of China’s public buses in batch to Bolivia and ended the history of no large bus in La Paz, the Capital of Bolivia. With excellent products and services, afterwards King Long won the bidding in the public bus purchase projects organized by Bolivian Government in succession, becoming the sole manufacturer exporting public buses in batch to Bolivia. The batch delivery this year once again is a witness for continuously deepened cooperation between China and Bolivia and also another achievement from King Long’s deep exploration of overseas market.

Superior quality

Better highland traveling

In La Paz, King Long buses have been deeply merged into the traveling of local residents. The official operation of every King Long public bus route can result in a carnival of local residents. They voluntarily decorate the King Long buses elaborately and celebrate the arrival of King Long buses with songs and dances, which is just like a grand festival.

Such favor and recognition from the heart on King Long buses is originated from that the King Long buses thoroughly changed of the traveling mode of La Paz, a highland city. In La Paz, with average altitude at 3,600m and restricted landform, approximately 70% roads are slopes and the road conditions are narrow and bad. For a long time, La Paz was short of public buses, a convenient city transportation tool. To change the traveling situation, the first state-owned public bus company in La Paz held a worldwide public bus tender at the end of 2012. In response to the special landform and road conditions in La Paz, the La Paz Government extended extremely stringent requirements on the technical and design requirements of the buses. Finally, King Long successfully won the bid with elaborate designs and excellent services.

In 2013, King Long's 11m public buses tailored for La Paz were put into official operations, which remarkably improved the local public transportation. With excellent quality, King Long buses successfully conquered the challenge of 24h continuous operation under severe working conditions in high altitude region and won the heartfelt recognition from local government and residents. Afterwards, King Long continuously won two worldwide public bus tenders held by La Paz Government, becoming the sole winning enterprise.

Following the expansion of King Long buses, 7 public bus routes with King Long buses were put into operation locally to meet the downtown public traveling needs. The delivery of 9m buses in the export batch of King Long buses this time will enable the La Paz’s public bus traveling to cover the remote regions. King Long’s public buses not only brought about better transportation, but also remarkably promoted the city image of La Paz. In 2017, La Paz was rated as “South American Best Transportation Solution City” by the South American Transportation Association.

Craftsmanship Services

Building new scenery of “City of Sky”

The snake-body leopard-head is the totem of Bolivia. The King Long buses with snake-body leopard-head paint on the body have become a moving scenery and shining namecard in La Paz and even in Bolivia. Compared with common body paint, the La Paz public bus paint is eye-catching, but such paint covers the whole vehicle including vehicle top, with complicated lines and rich colors. Facing towards such high-difficulty painting requirement, King Long buses won the appraisal of the Bolivian vehicle engineers with craftsmanship manufacturing.

Painting the elaborate body paint of nationality characteristic was merely a part of King Long’s tailored public buses for La Paz with craftsmanship. To meet the specific needs of local bus traveling more accurately, before providing the design scheme each time, King Long specially dispatched personnel to La Paz to investigate the road conditions of public bus routes for half year and communicated with the customer on the details repeatedly to jointly determine the solution. Besides the body paint, the corresponding design was taken in terms of power performance and functionality of vehicle, including the promotion of technologic calibration, enhancement of vehicle chassis strength, adjustment of vehicle approach angle and departure angle, to remarkably improve the traveling trafficability and operation stability of the vehicle. The conductor seat and gate machine are installed within vehicle, the get-off bell is provided for every handrail, and the automatic get-on/get-off system designed for the handicapped is fitted to embody the humanistic care.

Whenever the King Long buses arrived at Bolivia, King Long after-service team departed for La Paz. La Paz is called the world’s most severe place. King Long after-service team overcame the hardships and inconveniences of highland life and cooperated with customer to perform stringent bus tests and train the local public bus drivers. Such craftsmanship services guaranteed the normal operations of the buses. At present, the public buses put into operation in 2013 have been operated locally for 500,000~600,000km and their appearances and performances are still intact.

In-depth exploration of overseas market

Contributing Chinese scheme for the world

In Bolivia, King Long is a widely-known bus brand. Besides the large public buses, nearly 10,000 King Long mini vans are under operations within the territory of Bolivia and the market share has been ranked the first place steadily for years. The city transportation solution tailored for Bolivia is a miniature of King Long’s globalized marketing strategy and is the best manifestation for King Long’s implementing the brand proposition of “Innovations and progresses for you”. From the simple product export to the contribution of Chinese solution for global public transportation, King Long has successfully realized the transformation and upgrade from a bus manufacturer to a passenger transportation system solution provider and has become a “going-abroad” model in Chinese bus industry throughout the 40 years of reform and opening-up.

Throughout 18 years of in-depth exploration in overseas market, King Long products have been distributed to 136 countries and regions worldwide, totaling more than 80,000 buses. In the first half of this year, King Long totally exported 4,759 buses with revenue of RMB 1.06 billion, ranked the first place in the export volume ranking. Mentioning the future, the Overseas Marketing Director Xie Weiguo said: “Throughout 18 years of globalization strategy, King Long has won good reputation and awareness worldwide. In the future, King Long will center on the demands of overseas customers and continuously deepen the brand loyalty with excellent products and services. Under the guidance of the innovation-driven strategy, King Long will expand the export new generation technology bus products and intelligent passenger transportation system solution and realize the new leapfrog development of Chinese bus manufacturing and export with forward-looking vision.”