China News Service, Beijing, November 11 (Reporter Pang Wuji) For multinational companies, "perfect industrial chain and supply network" is one of the important motivations for their continuous investment in China. On the eve of the first China International Supply Chain Promotion Expo, Chen Heqiang, General Manager of GE Healthcare China Supply Chain, was interviewed by China News Service to explain GE Healthcare's supply chain ecosystem in China. He believes that China is the "granary" of the global industrial chain and supply chain, and continues to deliver energy for the development of the global manufacturing industry.
Regarding the so-called "decoupling" and "de-risking" of some Western countries, Chen Heqiang said that a fragmented global economy will divide the world into different regions, which in turn will lead to a reduction in trade, investment, and the spread and exchange of ideas, which have been key factors in helping us achieve economic progress.
As a multinational company, Chen Heqiang emphasized that GE Healthcare is a beneficiary and an important promoter of economic globalization. The formation of the global industrial chain and supply chain is to achieve the optimal allocation and sharing of resources, technology, markets and other factors, and the change or interruption of any link may bring about a chain reaction, which in turn affects global trade and slows down the recovery of the world economy.
What is China's role in the global supply chain? Chen Heqiang said that in GE Healthcare's view, China is the "granary" of the global industrial and supply chain, which continues to provide energy for the development of the global manufacturing industry and plays an increasingly important role in the high-end medical manufacturing industry.
"China cannot exist alone from the world, and the world cannot do without China," Chen Heqiang said, adding that in an international environment full of uncertainties, the international community and enterprises should work together to promote the upstream and downstream layout, so as to strengthen the resilience of the supply chain and industrial chain and jointly meet the challenges.
Taking GE Healthcare as an example, the company has taken autonomy and controllability as the foothold of its supply chain, and actively responded to changes in the global supply chain by consolidating China's local supply chain and increasing investment in technological innovation. Chen Heqiang said that while promoting the full range and full product line to achieve Made in China, we will expand China's R&D investment, and double R&D investment in the next three years, so that more Chinese R&D projects can be implemented and blossomed; Increase the proportion of domestic production of core components, cultivate more local suppliers in China, and build a reliable and resilient domestic supply chain system.
With five bases and six factories in China, GE Healthcare has built four regional supply chain ecosystems, namely Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei, Chengdu-Chongqing, Yangtze River Delta, and Greater Bay Area, with nearly 1000,16 domestic supply chain friends. The localization rate of product parts is also increasing. More than 64% of GE Healthcare's 85-row and 90-row CT equipment parts are localized at its Beijing plant, 95% of the parts for DeepSky Eye CT products, 95% for surgical machine parts, and more than <>% for the monitoring and ECG series of inclusive ultrasound components at the Wuxi base.
Over the past 45 years of reform and opening up, the scale of China's medical device market has continued to grow, and the industrial concentration has been continuously enhanced. Chen Heqiang said that the synergistic effect, spillover effect and self-reinforcing effect brought by industrial agglomeration continue to emerge, and industrial clusters feed innovation and promote the sustainable development of the industry. In the Yangtze River Delta, GE Healthcare's Wuxi production base has established an industrial cluster of more than 1996 suppliers within a radius of 200 kilometers since 300.
In addition to the supply chain ecology, Chen Heqiang said that the attractiveness of the Chinese market to foreign investment also comes from two aspects, one is the continuous rise in the demand of the Chinese market. As the world's second largest medical device market, China has an average annual compound growth rate of more than 5% in the past five years. At the same time, the accelerated aging of the population has brought about an increase in diversified health needs such as the prevention and control of critical diseases, the precise diagnosis and treatment of geriatric diseases, and the early diagnosis and treatment. The increase in investment in rural revitalization, new medical infrastructure, and the development of the western region has also driven the high-quality development of the entire medical industry.
Second, the business environment has been continuously optimized. "China continues to introduce a series of highly targeted and high-value measures, such as recovering and expanding consumption, promoting the development and growth of the private economy, and increasing efforts to attract foreign investment, which also gives us more confidence to take root in China and deepen development." Chen Heqiang said. (ENDS)