CIIE in the eyes of global CEOs | Kärcher: from made-in-China to created-in-China
Editor's notes:
It is the fifth time for the China International Import Expo to take place in Shanghai, and CIIE has been increasingly recognized by global businesses as a great platform to get connected with China and beyond. Again, we invite some of them to voice their opinions, which is to shed light upon the CIIE this year!
Christian May, Deputy Chief Executive Officer & Chief Sales Officer at Kärcher
For Kärcher, this is a very, very important show. First of all, certainly to increase our brand awareness, but also to get in contact for future business with customers all across the country. For us, this is a fantastic channel to exchange and to incorporate with our partners.
We are continuing to increase our investments in China. Especially, as a cleaning company we are working very hard to prevent any epidemic things and to have everything under control that has to do with these bacteria and viruses. And for this, we have several machines and products. For us, this is a very important market and we are continuing to invest here and have, for example, just recently decided to invest in a globally new R&D center here in China.
Since many years, Shanghai is for us a very, very important hub in China, where we started the majority of our businesses. Therefore, for us, it is a modern city with a lot of vibrating life there. And we like to be in Shanghai, really creating new business opportunities.
Over the past 20 years, we have established a sales subsidiary, a plant, a R&D center and the regional headquarter here in China. Now we have transformed really from only producing here, only from made in China to really creating something in China. Here in China, we are cooperating also with local companies to co-develop products. For example, we have an AI robot scrubber cleaner that has been successfully – together with a partner – developed and launched on the last year's fourth CIIE. These products now appear at Shanghai, but also in other many important cities and railway stations here in China to prevent epidemics and to help cleaning.
For us, Shanghai was always a business friendly and good environment for our development, and I can only suggest that Shanghai should continue to do so. For us, the open exchange with our partners coming together, exchanging ideas on how to be successful in the future is so important. And for this, we need a platform and also the environment that you are creating here.
Thank you to Shanghai for holding the fifth time the CIIE. For us, this is such an important platform to exchange. Since 20 years we are here in China, in the market, and with this booth here with more than 950 square meters, we are able to show our product solutions, the variety of new products, of solutions that we have in both families for corporate customers, but also for private users such as high pressure cleaners, carpet cleaners, car wash machines, and so on.
But even more important today is that we are taking care of the environment. We are a sustainable company that is really taking care with all its doing and all its products.
So once again, thank you to Shanghai, here from Shanghai for all the markets for holding this CIIE.
