China: Lilium Signs Agreement with Shenzhen Bao’an District “to Establish Regional HQ”

Ger­man-based eVTOL com­pa­ny, Lil­i­um, announced this week an agree­ment with Shenzhen’s Bao’an Dis­trict, to estab­lish a region­al head­quar­ters in the region under the name ‘力翎航空’ or ‘Pow­er­ful Wing’, reports a press release.

Lil­i­um becomes the first Euro­pean eVTOL man­u­fac­tur­er to set up a base in the dis­trict, sig­nalling an intent to firm­ly estab­lish itself with­in the Chi­nese mar­ket. The com­pa­ny plans to under­go cer­ti­fi­ca­tion in Chi­na, where it expects a sub­stan­tial 25 per­cent share of the glob­al eVTOL mar­ket.

The col­lab­o­ra­tion estab­lish­es Lil­i­um as “an active and con­tribut­ing indus­try play­er in the region’s low alti­tude econ­o­my (LAE), sup­port­ing rela­tion­ships with local infra­struc­ture part­ners, cus­tomers and reg­u­la­to­ry author­i­ties,” explains the release. 

While the part­ner­ship ini­tial­ly focus­es on the Guangdong–Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area, with a pop­u­la­tion of over 85 mil­lion peo­ple, Lil­i­um intends to grow across Chi­na and the broad­er APAC region in the future.

The com­pa­ny appre­ci­ates Bao’an District’s exten­sive region­al knowl­edge, essen­tial to build the foun­da­tion for pre­mi­um eVTOL oper­a­tions in the area. The region­al HQ will sup­port Lil­i­um Jet sales, ser­vices and sup­port in Chi­na and the Asia-Pacif­ic region (APAC).  

The release con­tin­ues, “Lil­i­um will also under­take cer­ti­fi­ca­tion and val­i­da­tion in Chi­na, which is expect­ed to account for approx­i­mate­ly 25 per­cent of the glob­al eVTOL mar­ket. By estab­lish­ing the region­al head­quar­ters, the com­pa­ny will cre­ate new jobs in the Shen­zhen area.”

It goes on, “Local recruit­ment is expect­ed to begin this year, with a focus on com­mer­cial activ­i­ties. Addi­tion­al­ly, Lil­i­um will par­tic­i­pate in LAE indus­try events; work with local infra­struc­ture part­ners to ensure com­pat­i­bil­i­ty with its Jet; and open oppor­tu­ni­ties for local sup­ply chain oper­a­tions.” 

Yong Ni, a rep­re­sen­ta­tive of the Bao’an Dis­trict, remarked, “This valu­able col­lab­o­ra­tion will cre­ate excit­ing new oppor­tu­ni­ties and sup­port the devel­op­ment of the nec­es­sary infra­struc­ture to bring sus­tain­able region­al avi­a­tion to Shen­zhen.”   

Klaus Roewe, CEO of Lil­i­um, added, “Chi­na rep­re­sents a huge oppor­tu­ni­ty for the eVTOL indus­try and this part­ner­ship with the Bao’an Dis­trict will expand our foot­print even fur­ther.”

He con­tin­ued, “We are par­tic­u­lar­ly grate­ful for the mod­ern facil­i­ties pro­vid­ed by the Dis­trict in its Low Alti­tude Econ­o­my Indus­try Pub­lic Ser­vice Cen­tre and for the sup­port they offer to encour­age growth.”

Last Novem­ber, Lil­i­um signed a Mem­o­ran­dum of Under­stand­ing (MOU) with CITIC Off­shore Heli­copter com­pa­ny, a divi­sion of Citic Group. Under this MOU, both par­ties agreed to estab­lish an eVTOL oper­a­tion net­work, start­ing with the Greater Bay Area, with plans to expand ser­vices to include the Guang­dong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area, Hainan Island and Tian­jin in the future.

This news fol­lowed Lil­i­um’s col­lab­o­ra­tion with Heli-East­ern a year ago for the pur­chase of 100 eVTOL Jets. The heli­copter ser­vice oper­ates across the Greater Bay Area, the Yangtze Riv­er Delt and the Bei­jing-Tian­jin-Hebei region.    

For more infor­ma­tion

www.lilium.com

(Top image: Klaus Roewe and Yong Ni Sign­ing the Agree­ment)

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