ISTOBAL, the Spanish provider of vehicle wash and care solutions for the automotive industry, is driving its international expansion plan and opening a subsidiary in China in Jiashan County (Zhejiang Province), with a 10,000-square-meter production facility for final assembly of wash equipment in the China Guigu Science Park. The subsidiary also has sales offices in Shanghai.
The ISTOBAL Group now has 10 subsidiaries worldwide, located in Spain, Portugal, Italy, the UK, Austria, Denmark, Sweden, USA, Brazil, and China.
According to Rafael Tomas, CEO of ISTOBAL, China represents one of the areas with the greatest growth potential for the ISTOBAL Group, together with the United States, Italy, and Poland. “China now has 1.4 billion inhabitants, 270 million cars, and the car wash sector is relatively new. Demand has started to grow in the past three to five years,” Tomas noted.
The subsidiary in China, ISTOBAL Vehicle Wash & Care (Zhejiang) Co., Ltd, has been established as a WFOE (Wholly Foreign-Owned Enterprise) under a greenfield project, led by Nacho Verdés, ISTOBAL expansion manager. Chun Pan, who has extensive experience in leading international companies, has been appointed CEO of the company.
ISTOBAL collaborates with Sinopec, one of the China’s leading oil companies, which already has 60 ISTOBAL machines in its network of service stations. Collaboration will be extended during 2021 with the plan to install more than 30 additional automatic car wash rollovers and tunnels.
