Mercedes-Benz pledges continued investment in China: board chairman

Iconic German automaker Mercedes-Benz is confident in China's future and pledges to continue investment as the company seeks to build on the market integration of the past decades, said the company's CEO on Saturday.

Ola Kallenius, chairman of the Board of Management and CEO of Mercedes-Benz Group, is in China to attend the China Development Forum 2025, which kicked off on Sunday in Beijing.

In an exclusive interview with China Global Television Network (CGTN) on Saturday, Kallenius reaffirmed China's significance as the biggest car market in the world.

"I think this is a big milestone, 50 years of working together. And if you look at where we were 50 years ago and you compare today, our economies are very, very closely linked together. So I think we should use that as a platform to think about how do we develop this into the future, how do we create economic win-wins? And it's already so connected that the auto industry and especially global companies like Mercedes-Benz, we are in all the big economies. Mercedes operates in 150 countries. China is our biggest and most important market. So, let's use this anniversary to see how can we work closer and stronger together in the future," he said.

During Kallenius' meeting on Friday with Chinese Commerce Minister Wang Wentao, the two sides exchanged views on Mercedes-Benz's cooperation with China and the EU's anti-subsidy investigation into Chinese electric vehicles.

Kallenius said the Chinese market is of strategic significance to Mercedes-Benz Group and that the company is willing to further expand investment in China, deepen cooperation with Chinese partners, and jointly cope with global economic and trade challenges.

"We're investing 14 billion [yuan] (about 1.93 billion U.S. dollars) into new products, new technologies, with partners also here in China. We're going to industrialize more vehicles also in China and it's not just our passenger car division. We have an operation for our vans also in Fujian Province. And we're in the process of introducing a complete new vehicle architecture for the vans that we will industrialize also here in China. So it is a very, very broad strategy for Mercedes-Benz in China and also China for the world," he said.

"I had the chance last night to meet Minister Wang from MOFCOM and also today to meet Party secretary Yin from Beijing, which is our home here, our main home here in China, and they sent a very strong message. They said China is open for business, China is opening up, you can count on China, invest in China, and you have a chance if you are competitive to get the return," added Kallenius, referring to Yin Li, secretary of the Communist Party of China Beijing Municipal Committee.

Kallenius is among 86 official delegates of multinationals from 21 countries participating in this year's forum, which is slated to conclude on Monday.

Mercedes-Benz pledges continued investment in China: board chairman

The death toll from a landfill collapse in the central Philippine city of Cebu has risen to eight by Monday morning as search and rescue operations continued for another 28 missing people.

The landfill collapse occurred on Thursday as dozens of sanitation workers were working at the site. The disaster has already caused injuries of 18 people.

Family members of the missing people said the rescue progress is slow, and the hope for the survival of their loved ones is fading.

"For me, maybe I’ve accepted the worst result already because the garbage is poisonous and yesterday, it was raining very hard the whole day. Maybe they’ve been poisoned. For us, alive or dead, I hope we can get their bodies out of the garbage rubble," said Maria Kareen Rubin, a family member of a victim.

Families have set up camps on high ground near the landfill, awaiting news of their relatives. Some people at the site said cries for help could still be heard hours after the landfill collapsed, but these voices gradually faded away.

Bienvenido Ranido, who lost his wife in the disaster, said he can't believe all that happened.

"After they gave my wife oxygen, my kids and I were expecting that she would be saved that night because she was still alive. But the night came and till the next morning, they didn't manage to save her," he said.

Death toll in central Philippine landfill collapse rises to eight