The coastal city of Xiamen in East China's Fujian province. [Photo provided to chinadaily.com.cn]

Morten Wierod, president of the electrification business area of ABB Ltd, a Switzerland-based technology company, announced an additional investment of $100 million to further increase the company’s commitment to the Chinese market when he attended the 2024 ABB Electrical Innovation Week event held in Xiamen, East China's Fujian province, on Jan 9.

Over the 32 years since it set up operations in Xiamen, ABB has gone from one to six wholly-owned and joint venture companies, illustrating the growth process of foreign-funded enterprises in China and reflecting Xiamen's open and innovative vitality.

The ABB Xiamen Industrial Center has become one of ABB Group's largest manufacturing bases globally, with over 95 percent localization in component production. In 2023, the center's total revenue exceeded 10 billion yuan ($1.39 billion).

Lai Jianzhou, director of the Management Committee of the Xiamen Torch High-tech Industrial Development Zone in Fujian, stated that ABB has six wholly-owned and joint venture companies in the zone. Xiamen has become one of ABB's most important industrial bases in China and globally. With help from ABB, Xiamen has been able to gradually attract a large number of high-quality enterprises in the power transmission and distribution field.

"We are continuously expanding the space for high-quality development and promoting industrial transformation and upgrading, and foreign-funded enterprises are important participants and beneficiaries," said Lai.

Over the course of more than three decades, the ABB Xiamen Industrial Center has become ABB's largest and most advanced manufacturing base globally, and the Xiamen Torch High-tech Industrial Development Zone has also become a hub for technological innovation in Xiamen, gathering more than 25,000 enterprises, including over 1,500 national high-tech enterprises.

Today, the electrical power industry has become a leading industry in the Xiamen Torch High-tech Industrial Development Zone. The zone is home to a number of representative enterprises, such as ABB and Schneider Electric, forming an industrial cluster that focuses on low, medium, and high voltage equipment manufacturing.

Xiamen's electrical power and electrical equipment industry ranks at the forefront of the national power transmission and distribution field. In the future, it will move towards becoming a leading global research and development base for new types of power equipment and a city of innovation in the new energy industry.