The GaC campaign was kicked off by Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao and German Chancellor Mrs. Merkel in Nanjing on August 28th 2007 to promote Sino-German economic and cultural cooperation. The campaign, lasting for three years until 2010, has been touring different cities in China. Shenyang of Liaoning Province is the fourth station of the campaign.
With the motif on "Sustainable Urban Development", the "German-Chinese Promenade" comprises of a central pavilion, a cultural pavilion, a conference pavilion and separate pavilions from different German companies. In the Siemens Corporate Pavilion, two themed halls exhibit three major topics. In the first part, Siemens demonstrates its unique answers to urbanization challenges from industry, energy and healthcare through a 3D film. Under the theme of "Siemens: Partner for sustainable urban development in China", the second part displays Siemens' advanced and innovative solutions as well as successful reference projects covering areas of industry, energy, healthcare, mobility, water treatment, building technology and security. In the third part, Siemens exhibits its corporate social responsibility engagements, human resource programs, its university cooperation and arts programs in China. The "Discovery Box" play-field attracts great interests from visitors, especially kids, as the boxes offer a lot of experiments in "Energy & Electricity" and "Environment & Health". Besides the exhibitions at the "German-Chinese Promenade", Siemens is also involved in a series of activities of the campaign in Liaoning Province including a CSR Conference and high-level forums.
As the fourth station of the "Germany and China – Moving Ahead Together" campaign, Liaoning Province has been strategically positioned as the transportation and industrial "hub" of northeast China. The city concentrates a number of large-scale energy, raw material and equipment-manufacturing enterprises. Historically considered as the "cradle to the industries of the new China", northeast China was once the most important heavy industrial base to drive the industrialization of the country, however, on high cost of environmental degradation. With the "Revitalizing Northeast China" strategy launched in 2003, progresses have been made in technological innovation, readjustment of industrial structure and improvement of infrastructure. Nevertheless, the imbalance between accelerated economic boom and deteriorating environmental conditions poses a pressing challenge for the region to seek a new development approach to revitalize the old industrial bases while preserving the resources and sustaining the environment.
"As a green infrastructure giant, Siemens is among the very few multinational companies that with its unique portfolio perfectly fits to the key sustainable development needs of northeast-China industrial bases. We are very impressed to witness the great improvements the region has achieved over the past few years, and we are also proud of our active participation during this revitalization progress," said Dr. Richard Hausmann, CEO Siemens Northeast Asia and President & CEO of Siemens Ltd., China. "Liaoning Province shares many similarities with the Ruhr area, the formerly industrial base of Germany. With rich and diverse experiences obtained from the development of the Ruhr, Siemens will continuously contribute to the prosperity of northeast China, particularly Liaoning Province – 'the Ruhr of the East'."
The cooperation between Siemens and northeast China dates back to 1906, when Siemens delivered a telephone exchange system to Shenyang, which helped the region start to establish its modern communications network. With a substantial presence in northeast China including Shenyang Branch, 5 regional offices (Dalian, Changchun, Harbin, Huhhot and Baotou), as well as 3 operating companies, Siemens has become an integral part of the local economy and actively participated in sustainable development of the region by widely applying its unique environmental technologies and solutions. For example, the integrated electrical and automation solutions provided to Ansteel Group in 2003 have helped produce millions of tons of steel for booming cities in the northeast China without severely polluting the soil, water and the atmosphere; the advanced SPPA-T3000 DCS (Siemens’ fourth-generation power station digital control system) and Profibus technology to Jiutai Power Plant (2X600MW) of Huaneng Group in Jilin Province will help the plant to become the first Profibus-enabled fully-digitalized power plant in China; in the field of healthcare, the advanced and innovative solutions for diagnostics, therapy, hospital IT, laboratory equipment and professional services provided to the local hospitals significantly increased the efficiency and quality of medical care in the region.
For Siemens, environmental and climate protection is an obligation to society as well as a business opportunity with significant growth rates, especially in China. Siemens China announced earlier to inject half of its RMB 10 billion mid-term investment into innovative energy-efficient and environmental friendly technologies and solutions to expand its leading position in this field. Furthermore, by 2010, 40 percent of Siemens China’s order intake will be generated from its environmental portfolio.
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Siemens in China
Siemens is one of the most well-known, liked and respected corporate citizens in China. Marked by the delivery of China's first pointer telegraph in 1872, it is among the earliest international companies to pioneer co-operation with China. Over more than a hundred years, Siemens has stood for technical achievements, innovation, quality, reliability and internationality. Presently, Siemens maintains more than 90 operating companies and 61 regional offices in China, representing all business sectors of Siemens worldwide – Industry, Energy and Healthcare. These offices, together with the Regional and Provincial managers, are the backbone of Siemens' regional strategy and ensure that the company is close to its customers to be able to respond quickly and efficiently to their needs. With more than 43,000 highly qualified local staff, Siemens has become one of the largest employers amongst foreign invested enterprises in China and an integral part of the Chinese economy. Today, by applying a wide array of environmental portfolio and innovative solutions in the cooperation with local partners, the company is committed to contributing to the sustainable development of the country. In Fiscal 2008, sales and new orders of Siemens China were RMB 57 billion and RMB 65.5 billion respectively.