BITZER, the world’s largest independent manufacturer of refrigeration compressors, announced that it is expanding its footprint in Malaysia to support the cold chain in the country. Construction and development is pushing Malaysia’s HVACR growth. The Malaysian government is focused on public transportation and shopping malls, offering high growth prospects for the Malaysian HVACR industry. To improve connectivity in the city’s shopping district, the government is constructing air-conditioned pedestrian walkways linked up to malls. The government will continue developing rail connectivity projects and total investments are expected to be 160 billion Malaysian ringgit by 2020.
With imminent market changes in the ACR industry as it moves towards greener refrigerants and acceleration of the HCFC phaseout schedule in South East Asia, HCFC refrigerant substitutes such as HFC (R407C and R410A) and other alternative refrigerants such as R32, HFOs, hydrocarbon, CO2 and ammonia will require increased skills’ development and application understanding. Global manufacturers and government policy direction on HCFC refrigerant substitutes, the current share of HFC refrigerant and projection of other new refrigerant usage in the future offer many challenges to the HVAC industry.
In order to meet this increasing demand at all levels of the HVAC industry, BITZER is restructuring its operations in the region to focus on greater technical solutions in the future. Rob de Bruyn heads operations for BITZER in the South East Asia region. BITZER sees opportunities emerging, not only as a result of imminent changes, but also for its screw compressor technology, original equipment manufactured in Malaysia.
BITZER has been present in Malaysia for nearly 20 years through its distributors and subsidiary company BITZER (South East Asia) Sdn. Bhd. and has developed an enviable reputation as a reliable supplier of its compression products to major OEMs located in South East Asia. To support the many and varied refrigeration and air-conditioning applications – be it stationary applications like refrigeration of supermarkets, cooling of manufacturing processes, air conditioning of buildings or cold storage warehouses, etc. Globally BITZER also has a variety of applications for the transport industry that require air conditioning and refrigeration. Among these are local transport and infrastructure vehicles such as buses and rail transit, refrigerated trucks and trailers that secure the cold chain for food, and refrigeration of shipping containers for export.
The focus will be heavily directed on developing its product range and reach in Malaysia. “We will continue to expand and develop our technical support in the region by recruiting and training the best team of application sales engineers and technical engineers,” explained Rob de Bruyn. BITZER is already a supplier of choice for many Malaysian-based food-processing companies.