Buoyed by its robust economic growth and continuous efforts to improve business environment, China, a longtime popular destination for foreign investment, is becoming increasingly attractive, a senior executive from Honeywell has said.
China’s economy is “very dynamic” and has huge potential to grow further, Shane Tedjarati, president of Global High Growth Regions of the U.S. industrial conglomerate, told Xinhua in a recent interview.
“Along that path, it’s also becoming a very, very attractive market to invest (in). It has been attractive for the past 30 years, and it becomes more and more attractive as China decides to open up its economy even more,” said Tedjarati, who has worked and lived in China for more than 20 years.
Currently, China is Honeywell’s largest single market outside the United States, and one of the company’s most important sources of growth, according to the multinational corporation which primarily operates in four areas of business: aerospace, building technologies, performance materials and technologies, and safety and productivity solutions.
Honeywell’s core business aligns with China’s market demands, Tedjarati said.
The senior executive said when he looked at China’s blueprint for the next five years, “it’s almost as if we had written it for each other,” adding that a lot of what Honeywell does is very much in line with China’s vision.
“I think that the areas where we’re really excited about are e-commerce, safety, security, healthcare, energy efficiency, environment, climate change all together, and everything that relates to it,” Tedjarati said.
Honeywell’s business operations in China can be traced back several decades ago. Since China introduced its reform and opening-up policies, Honeywell’s investment has been on the fast track to join hands with local Chinese partners in building a connected, smarter, safer, and more sustainable world.
“China has definitely made a lot of strides in opening up its economy” and improving its business climate for foreign investors, said Tedjarati.
China’s recent moves such as shortening negative lists for market access and pushing ahead an investment agreement with Europe and other areas of the world “continue to show that China wants to open up,” he added.
Multinational companies operating in China for a long time and those who have become local as Honeywell did “are part of the local artery of China,” he said.
In 2004, Honeywell introduced the strategy of “East for East” in the Chinese market to meet local market demands through local product development and innovation, and the “East to Rest” strategy to bring China-developed innovations to the rest of the world.
Tedjarati said Honeywell will continue to follow its “East for East” and “East to Rest” development strategies, further expand its business presence in China, and join hands with local partners to meet the demands of Chinese businesses and consumers.
Thanks to China’s effective measures to bring the COVID-19 pandemic under control, Honeywell began to see its Chinese business become more normalized in the second half of last year, he said.
Meanwhile, the senior executive said he expects that China will lead the way for the company’s overall recovery this year.
Honeywell currently operates more than 50 joint ventures or wholly-owned subsidiaries in over 20 Chinese cities.
In 2020, the company established a wholly-owned subsidiary in the central Chinese city of Wuhan as its headquarters for mass-mid segment business in China, one of its latest moves in response to China’s growth and development.
