GE Medical Systems, a unit of General Electric Company, held a ground breaking ceremony yesterday for its China industrial park in the Beijing Economic-Technological Development Area.
The park occupies 60,000 square metres with a total investment of US$26 million.
The project is scheduled to begin operations in late 2002.
It will serve as a base for engineering and development, manufacturing, sales and marketing, and services of medical diagnostic equipment including computed tomography scanners, magnetic resonance systems and x-ray equipment.
The park will be a centre for customer education and product exhibitions.
"The new plant will triple both the capacity of our production in China and our export volume," said Chih Chen, president of GE Medical Systems China.
The construction of the plant will make China a major global producing base for GE Medical Systems and will enhance its ability to serve local and global customers with more diversified products and services.
GE Medical Systems started production in China in 1991 through GE Hangwei, a joint venture with China National Medical Equipment & Supplies Import & Export Corp.
GE Hangwei has enabled China to become one of the world's top five production bases of CT scanners by manufacturing over 600 units per year.
GE Medical Systems has established three engineering and manufacturing centres in China, with most of its products exported to North America, Europe and Japan.
GE has 30 joint ventures and wholly owned enterprises in China, with 8,000 employees and total investments of over US$1.5 billion.
(chinadaily.com.cn 09/12/2001)
