Ramirent trials forklift rental in Finland

Ramirent is trialling the short term rental of forklift trucks in Finland and if successful will extend the programme to the rest of the Nordic region this Autumn and its other territories in 2013.

As part of the initiative Ramirent has signed an agreement with Toyota Material Handling Finland (TMHFi), covering counterbalanced forklifts as well as warehouse forklifts.

Ramirent will take delivery of a modest number of machines before the summer and then extend the fleet size if demand requires. The company preferred not to provide details of how it is acquiring the forklifts, but said the machines would be wholly operated by Ramirent.

TMHFi will train Ramirent staff and is responsible for the scheduled maintenance of the forklifts, which will be rented as part of Ramirent's Heavy Machinery product group.

"Ramirent has rented out forklifts before, but more occasionally and without active marketing", said Ramirent's group fleet director Mikael Kämpe.

"Now, with this new agreement in place, Ramirent Finland Oy will include forklifts officially in their rental offering and start actively to market the forklift rental business to its various customer sectors.

"If this cooperation proves to be successful in Finland, we will expand the cooperation to all Nordic countries in the autumn of 2012 and to other Ramirent countries in 2013."

Pasi Nieminen, managing director of TMHFi, described the agreement as a significant milestone for both TMHFi and Ramirent; "Both parties are confident that there is significant growth potential in Finland as regards short-term rental of forklifts."