Enterprising 44-year-old sees business boom after local authorities build huge artificial lake so he can ‘ice test’ vehicles when it freezes over
2-MIN READ2-MIN ListenAlice Yanin ShanghaiPublished: 6:00pm, 10 Mar 2026Over two decades in a little-known, freezing city in northern China, a Swedish man has built a career and witnessed the booming development of the country’s carmaking industry.
Gustav Holmgren, 44, whose Chinese name is Ge Siwen, is the legal representative and site manager of ATM (Hulun Buir) Proving Ground Service, which provides cold-weather vehicle testing for carmakers.
His company is located in Yakeshi, a small city with a population of 300,000 and administered by the prefecture-level city of Hulun Buir in Inner Mongolia.
Holmgren first came to China in 2006, after graduating from university.
