BJ Mercantile Inc (BJM), known as the distributor of Scania buses, recently celebrated their 50th year in the Philippines. The event was titled “The Making of a Gold” and looked back on the company’s origins and all their endeavors.
BJM was started by Jimmy and Belen Lim, the initials of which became the name of their company. They started as an importer and seller of used vehicles and trucks that bloomed to new and used construction and industrial machines later on.
Since then they have branched out to real estate with BJ Land, Meiling Development Corporation for commercial and residential housing, Malinta auctions, Microvan Inc, Microvan Leasing that rents cranes to construction companies, San Simon Cold Storage, even fuel importation with Micro Dragon Petroleum and Royal Dragon Ocean Transport. The event also served as the 10th anniversary of BJM as the exclusive dealer of Scania buses in the Philippines.
“It has been quite a remarkable run for BJM during these past 5 decades and we would like to thank all our employees, partners, and customers for their continued trust and support. But we are not yet done growing, we look forward to expanding our inventory and to entering other high growth businesses in the coming years,” said Leilani Lim Tan, Vice President of BJ Mercantile Inc.
In the same event, BJM has shared their deal with Ashok-Leyland to carry the brand’s commercial vehicles. They also inked a deal with Fuso to carry their trucks. The most surprising ‘growth’ avenue for BJM however, comes in the luxury passenger car market as they are now the distributor for Hongqi vehicles in the country. BJM believes that in search of diversification without going too far from commercial vehicles, the passenger cars are the next viable option.
INTERNATIONAL OPERATIONS OF
ASHOK – LEYLAND
PRESIDENT AND CEO OF SOJITZ FUSO
PHILIPPINES
MANAGING DIRECTOR FOR SCANIA EXPORT
MARKETS ASIA
“When we started with a brand new business, we started with Scania which is a line. Now that entering the passenger market, we wanted to enter with a premium brand as well,” said Tan.
Hongqi is an elite car brand from China that started in 1958. Their cars were only sold to the Chinese government as vehicles for their top officials. It wasn’t until 2018 when they started selling their cars to the public and later on, globally. Tan said BJM will be carrying the whole lineup of Hongqi in the Philippines, electrified ones included.
We asked them about what they think their advantage would be in handling a premium passenger brand, considering they’ve been doing well with a premium commercial vehicle.
“With commercial vehicles it’s different – we are there from the time that they start looking, until the time they purchase, until the whole life of the vehicle we are there with them. So that will be our main advantage. Not only are we there during the sale of the vehicle, we are there until the end of the life of the vehicle. You will be able to get a more personalized service with us because that’s how we do things. So we’ll just carry that from our commercial vehicle experience to the passenger side as well.”
Hongqi is a starting point for BJ Mercantile towards their next 50 years. They will start marketing the car next year.
