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The German industrial conglomerate Siemens has announced significant investments in factories in China and Singapore, as it pursues a strategy of diversifying in Asia while expanding in the Chinese market despite growing geopolitical tensions.
Chief executive Roland Busch told a news conference in Singapore on Thursday that Siemens would invest €2bn globally this year to increase its manufacturing capacity, starting with a factory expansion in China and the opening of a high-tech plant in the city-state. The doubling down on China comes after Busch had described it as a driver of technological innovation, but Siemens is also hedging against overreliance on a country where US restrictions have been making it difficult to operate — by choosing Singapore as a hub for exports into south and south-east Asia. “I avoid the word decoupling, because decoupling means deciding either/or and nobody wants to do that . . . the difference is diversification, which is looking at how you can serve more markets . . . which makes you at the same time more resilient,” Busch told reporters on Thursday. Siemens’ new €200mn plant in Singapore, which is set to employ 400 people, will produce digital twin and “intelligent hardware” technologies for companies in the region. The conglomerate will also invest €140mn to expand by 40 per cent a plant in Chengdu, south-west China, which makes software to control robots and other industrial machines. However, this would continue to “serve the local growth opportunities in China for China”. It comes alongside a new research and development centre in Shenzhen that will “speed up development of motion control systems”. (...) Source
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