Siemens CEO hails Chinese economic transformation toward high-quality development

China's evolution from the world's workbench to an advanced technology hub reflects its strategic vision and commitment to innovation, said Roland Busch, president and CEO of Siemens AG, in an interview with China Central Television (CCTV) that aired Friday.

The German industrial giant has maintained a presence in China for over 150 years. Historical records reveal that founder Ernst Werner von Siemens foresaw the nation's need for advanced technology as early as the 1870s, an insight cemented when Siemens-powered trams debuted in Beijing in 1899.

From 2005 to 2007, Busch served as President and CEO of the former Siemens VDO Automotive Asia Pacific, a car electric automotive electronics company based in Shanghai. Drawing on this experience, the top executive highlighted how China’s strategic focus on new quality productive forces aligns with Siemens' long-standing commitment to innovation.

"It is a process, as you said, it's now maybe with a strategy of deploying new quality productive forces. It's just an extension of what we saw over the many years. I lived in China, it's more than 10 years ago that I lived in China. I saw that already coming. It started off basically with China being the workbench for the world, just taking any products and manufacture them locally in China with lower cost," he said.

Busch reflected on China's early role as a low-cost manufacturing hub while highlighting its remarkable shift towards technological leadership.

"And over the years, obviously, the companies working in China including the international ones, the local ones, they acquired technology and knowledge and on technologies and you see an extension. It's boosted now because technology is changing so fast. So therefore, it's completely the right strategy to put more emphasis on that," Busch said.

Siemens now operates 21 R-and-D centers and over 50 factories in China. Recent initiatives include AI-powered industrial metaverse collaborations and smart infrastructure projects.

Siemens CEO hails Chinese economic transformation toward high-quality development

China's outstanding aggregate social financing -- the total amount of financing to the real economy -- reached 442.12 trillion yuan (about 63.4 trillion U.S. dollars) as of the end of 2025, up 8.3 percent year on year, central bank data showed on Thursday.

The country's aggregate social financing stood at 35.6 trillion yuan (about 5.1 trillion U.S. dollars) in 2025, up by 3.34 trillion yuan (about 479 billion U.S. dollars) from the year 2024, said the People's Bank of China (PBOC), the country's central bank.

According to the data, the M2, a broad measure of money supply that covers cash in circulation and all deposits, increased 8.5 percent year on year to 340.29 trillion yuan (about 48.8 trillion U.S. dollars) as of the end of December.

In addition, outstanding yuan loans stood at 271.91 trillion yuan (about 39 trillion U.S. dollars) at the end of 2025, up 6.4 percent year on year.

China's aggregate social financing maintains high growth in 2025