Gov. Bev Perdue today joined executives from RATO Power Co Ltd. in announcing that the company will locate its North American headquarters in Lincoln County. RATO manufactures ATVs, motorcycles, water pumps, generators, and general purpose engines used primarily for outdoor power equipment. The company is expected to create as many as 40 jobs with the location of the North American headquarters to Denver. This will be RATO’s first facility outside of China.
“Creating jobs is my top priority,” Gov. Perdue said. “North Carolina continues to attract globally competitive companies because of our highly ranked business climate and our tremendous workforce. We welcome these new jobs and the commitment to North Carolina by RATO, and we look forward to a long and successful partnership.”
RATO’s global headquarters is located in Chongqing, China and was founded in 2007. In January of this year, RATO acquired Denver Global Products based in Denver, N.C. Roger Leon, the president of Denver Global, will become the president of RATO North America.
RATO currently supplies customers in more than 100 countries. The company produces about 1 million units of general purpose engines and 100,000 units of motorcycles and ATVs annually.
Other partners who assisted with this project include: the N.C. Department of Commerce, Lincoln County, and the Lincoln County Economic Development Association.
Through Gov. Perdue’s JobsNOW initiative, the state continues to work aggressively to create well-paying jobs, train and retrain its workforce, and lay the foundation for a strong and sustainable economic future.
For more information about RATO Power Co., please visit www.rato.cc.