Siemens to enhance SOE ties

Siemens AG, a German technology company, will enhance its ties with China's State-owned enterprises to help push their digital transformation and carbon emissions reductions during the country's 14th Five-Year Plan period (2021-25), a senior executive said.

To better integrate into China's new development pattern, including the dual-circulation development pattern, one of Siemens' growth focuses is to reinforce collaboration with SOEs and other leading companies in the nation as they have huge demand to further improve their operational efficiency and cut carbon emissions through digital solutions, said Xiao Song, Siemens' global executive vice-president.

"Knowing that many central-administered SOEs are upgrading toward digitalization, we learned their various demands, and we will deploy more resources in this area to create fresh growth points," said Xiao, who is also the newly appointed chairman, president and CEO for the group in China.

To build more partnerships, Xiao led a team to visit China FAW Group Corp, a Changchun, Jilin province-based State automaker, last month to exchange views on future cooperation.

China FAW Group plans to boost its global sales by 7.9 percent on a yearly basis to over 4 million units this year, according to its annual growth plan.

The SOE said many opportunities come from surging demand for electric and digital vehicles with more digital bells and whistles, and customized services in both the domestic and global markets in recent years.

Xiao said Siemens will put a next generation digital plant into operation in Nanjing, Jiangsu province to produce numerical control systems, drives and servo motors to support more industrial equipment for clients in both China and markets of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations.

"The new factory's productivity will increase 20 percent by deploying our Industry 4.0 digital technologies along the entire value chain including product design, production planning, engineering, execution and service in Nanjing," he said.

Siemens currently is assisting Guangdong Huaxing Glass Co Ltd, the largest glass container manufacturer in Asia by output volume, in building 15 digital lighthouse pilot factories in China. The partnership aims to upgrade the digitalization level of the glassmaker, enhance its resilience to meet challenges and lay the foundation for its global market structure.

As manufacturing is the backbone of a country's economy, the government pledged early this year efforts to maintain the proportion of the manufacturing industry in GDP, and ensure that the sector can be reliable at critical moments.

The central government introduced a guideline in late March outlining measures to boost manufacturing services and intelligently transform the manufacturing sector. The idea is to improve the quality and efficiency, innovation capacity and resource allocation efficiency of the manufacturing sector by 2025.

Manufacturing services have become a new business form adapted to the digital economy, because accelerating the growth of manufacturing services and promoting digital, networking and intelligent transformation of the sector will sharpen China's manufacturing edge, raise its resilience and provide strong impetus for economic growth, said Zhao Ying, a researcher at the Beijing-based Institute of Industrial Economics, which is affiliated with the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.

Eager to further expand its market presence, Siemens announced last month it will establish its China headquarters for electrical products in Suzhou, Jiangsu province. The new facility will be responsible for Siemens' electrical products business in China as well as worldwide exports to more than 20 countries and regions.