Air-conditioner maker Chigo dreams of becoming world's biggest
Ex-popsicle hawker pursues dream with a sprawling factory and a stock listing
At the Canton Fair in October last year, air-conditioner maker Guangdong Chigo took an eight-booth prime spot alongside China's biggest brand names.
The set-up was a far cry from four years earlier, when the company did not even qualify as an exhibitor in the country's largest trade fair and had to make do with an ad hoc street-side stand near the exhibition hall, in the heart of Guangzhou.
Today, Chigo, which means 'high aspiration' in Chinese, is one of the mainland's leading makers of air-conditioners, according to president and chairman Li Xinghao, a popsicle-hawker-turned-entrepreneur from Guangdong.
'Our dream is to become the world's biggest,' Mr Li said in an interview in his Foshan office. 'We are building the biggest air-conditioning manufacturing base in the world.'
He was referring to a sprawling three million square metre site in the dusty district of Nanhai in Foshan that will house production lines, spare parts factories and offices.
