Europe-based industrial giant applauds innovations from its Chinese arm
Source: Xinhua Editor: huaxia / by Larry Neild 2023-12-12 13:28:30
China is one of the world's most advanced markets in terms of innovation and technology, said a senior official of ABB, a Swedish-Swiss electrification, energy and automation company.
The Chinese branch of ABB has made some world-class innovations that have been applied globally, said Tarak Mehta, president of ABB's Motion Business Area.
"We have ramped up quite significantly the research and development (R&D) resources to ensure that China's needs are met with local industry and the local technical capacity. We are investing more in R&D and ensuring that our supply chains are locally self-sufficient in China," he said.
Noting that December marks the first anniversary of the opening of a 150 million-U.S.-dollar robotics mega-factory of the company in Shanghai, Mehta said that around 15,000 of its 100,000-plus workforce are now located in China and ABB is already looking at what is next for its operations in the country.
"China is one of the most advanced markets in the world in terms of using digital capabilities of our products and deploying digital infrastructure. It's also the second most important market for ABB in terms of revenue, with a significant growth potential in the future," said Mehta, who is also a member of ABB's Group Executive Committee.
With a history dating back to the late 1800s, ABB has a tradition of focusing on innovation and technology, said Mehta, adding that there are more R&D engineers in China than there are in Switzerland where the company is headquartered and many of the innovations developed by ABB in China are being applied globally.
"Our colleagues in China have developed world-leading and world-class solutions. We are producing them for the world in China, not just for China. We have quite a bit of export out of China. It's a significant part of our motions business," said Mehta.
Highlighting ABB's role as one of the key enablers of a low-carbon world, he said the company is now committed to solutions that save energy, are more productive and consume less CO2.
"As we think about what are the challenges the world faces, certainly clean energy and ensuring that the future generations have a better place than what we have enjoyed. We will continue to make progress and hope that the future is brighter for the next generations. I sincerely hope we can work together in a way that the world has never needed to."
On the COP28 climate conference in Dubai, Mehta called on developed countries to do more to help developing countries deal with the challenges the planet is facing.
"While it's easy to point fingers at people who are just starting up on their development journey of their people, security, and increasing quality of life, people who don't have electricity should be supported to get clean electricity," he said.
