GE bets on India, China as US economy turns weak
The world's biggest industrial conglomerate General Electric is undeterred by a slowdown in the US economy as the group expects any weakness in the home market to be offset by fast growing sales in countries like India and China.
By PTI |
LONDON: The world's biggest industrial conglomerate General Electric is undeterred by a slowdown in the US economy as the group expects any weakness in the home market to be offset by fast growing sales in countries like India and China.
"The fastest growing countries for us are the emerging economies including China, India, Russia and Latin America. In these regions, we have annual revenues of about 32 billion dollar and the figure is growing at around 20 per cent a year," GE Chairman and Chief Executive Jeffrey Immelt told Financial Times in an interview.
Unfazed by the weakness triggered by the subprime credit crisis, Immelt said: "outside the US, particularly in China and India, economies appear strong.. In the world as a whole, there is still a lot of liquidity."
"Taking into account the emerging economies and also the more mature markets outside the US, I can see our sales expanding outside North America for the next few years by 10-15 per cent a year. In the US, sales growth will inevitably be lower. This year, we will probably expand our revenues in the US by 6-7 per cent," he added.
Further, Immelt said even after assuming that the US economy would slow down, demand for infrastructure-related items such as medical scanners and power systems would stay quite high. "If you consider the problems in the credit markets, they will not have an impact on the vast majority of GE's business," he told Financial Times.
He said GE's sales are about half those in China. "The economy here is driven by a buoyant entrepreneurial culture. The government does not really add anything, apart from bureaucracy. So, in approaching the business of selling there, you have to use a different style to doing the same thing in China," he pointed out in the interview.
"The fastest growing countries for us are the emerging economies including China, India, Russia and Latin America. In these regions, we have annual revenues of about 32 billion dollar and the figure is growing at around 20 per cent a year," GE Chairman and Chief Executive Jeffrey Immelt told Financial Times in an interview.
Unfazed by the weakness triggered by the subprime credit crisis, Immelt said: "outside the US, particularly in China and India, economies appear strong.. In the world as a whole, there is still a lot of liquidity."
"Taking into account the emerging economies and also the more mature markets outside the US, I can see our sales expanding outside North America for the next few years by 10-15 per cent a year. In the US, sales growth will inevitably be lower. This year, we will probably expand our revenues in the US by 6-7 per cent," he added.
Further, Immelt said even after assuming that the US economy would slow down, demand for infrastructure-related items such as medical scanners and power systems would stay quite high. "If you consider the problems in the credit markets, they will not have an impact on the vast majority of GE's business," he told Financial Times.
He said GE's sales are about half those in China. "The economy here is driven by a buoyant entrepreneurial culture. The government does not really add anything, apart from bureaucracy. So, in approaching the business of selling there, you have to use a different style to doing the same thing in China," he pointed out in the interview.
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